


The Celebrity Crush Plot

by biscuit_knees



Category: Barry (TV 2018), Bill Hader - Fandom
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, Co-workers, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Secret Crush, Secret Relationship, Slow Burn, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:54:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25960171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuit_knees/pseuds/biscuit_knees
Summary: Elle Forrester gets the chance of a lifetime to write for the second season of Barry. The only problem is that her celebrity crush, Bill Hader, is the star and show-runner.
Relationships: Bill Hader/Original Character(s), Bill Hader/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter One

The first thing you should know about Elle Forrester is that she is a writer. She started writing creatively in college and had really great feedback from a few professors. She intended to go into musical theater but along the way she started to get really into sketch comedy. It was easy to see why. Her father raised her on episodes of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and Saturday Night Live. After graduating from college, she took the plunge and moved out to Los Angeles. 

She started taking classes at Second City and quickly advanced through their program. She was sought out by her fellow students because of her ability to completely transform into a character, but what she really loved to do was write her own sketches. She wrote all the time and had hard-drives full of successful and failed sketches. She began submitting spec-scripts and pilots all around town until she was finally hired into the writers’ room for a game show on Comedy Central. She had a couple of other writing jobs on TV shows and continued her work with Second City. 

She had been hustling for more than 15 years, and she was exhausted. Her friend Janine worked in the creative production offices at HBO and told Elle that HBO was looking to add women writers to a lot of their shows. She sent over her best pilots and hoped for the best.

Elle figured it would take Janine at least a week to return her email, and got busy working on jokes for someone’s podcast, not her proudest moment. Not even three hours later, Elle received an email back from Janine.

L - 

I’m a snotty, giggling mess. These are amazing. There is a spot open that I think you would be perfect for and I’d love to pass them to the producers and show runners. 

Let me know,

J

Elle quickly replied.

J - 

  1. I love you.
  2. Yes please.
  3. What show?



Thanks, L

Fifteen minutes later, a reply appeared from Janine.

L - 

Anything for you. Hit send five minutes ago. The show is Barry, have you seen it? Sent your work to Liz Sarnoff. She said she would pass it along to the showrunners.

XO - J

Elle’s blood pressure dropped about a dozen points and her hands went cold. She reread the phrase over again… _Barry, have you seen it?_... _pass it along to the showrunners_. The _showrunners_ , which happened to be Alec Berg and Bill Hader.

See, the second thing you should know about Elle Forrester is that she is a huge fan of Bill Hader. Not only was she aware of the show, she loved it, as well as everything else he did. She also thought he was… _weirdly attractive_. Like the kind of attractive that you question if people will make fun of you for it. So she just didn’t tell anyone and instead snuck around on reddit and tumblr. 

Elle stared at her screen, frozen. “How the hell am I going to get work done now?” she said out loud. Her cat, Carl, meowed in response. He was a very vocal companion.

She replied to Janine’s email thanking her so much for passing it on and confirming she had seen the show. Elle got up out of her seat and started pacing around her house mumbling to herself. “Don’t freak out, its nothing. Probably nothing will come of it. Stuff like this happens all the time. This isn’t the first time you’ve been suggested to write for a show you love… This is totally normal. But you need to calm down. You won’t hear anything for like a week or so… so just calm your ass down and get back to work.”

Elle squinted her eyes shut, taking in a deep inhale. She adubily exhaled out of her mouth and plopped back down in front of her keyboard. “What am I writing about?” she thought, before diving back into a joke for a blatantly sexist podcast.

Three days later, Elle was out for a run. She had just hit the halfway point and turned around to head back when her playlist was interrupted by a phone call. She didn’t recognize the number and let it go to voicemail. Once she received the notification that a message had been left she said breathlessly, “Hey Siri, play recent voicemail.”

“Playing recent voicemail, left today at 9:17 am. ‘ _Hi Elle, This is Liz over at HBO. Your friend Janine sent me over some of your work for the writer’s position on Barry. I’d love to bring you in to talk with myself, Alec and Bill next week. Will you give me a call back so we can get something on the schedule? Looking forward to hearing from you._ ”

The wind was knocked out of her and she came to a complete stop. Her side started cramping hard and she doubled over in pain, “Ah fuck, oh god… okay keep moving.” She was a good two miles from her home but it felt like ten. She needed to get home so she could return this phone call. 

“Fuck it,” she thought and started sprinting back to her house. She fell through the door and collapsed on the cold tile in her entryway, her heart pounding, lungs gulping in air. Her calf muscles felt as if they were being twisted like ropes, sending sharp pains up her legs. She waited for her breathing to return back to normal but she was still so out of breath.

If she hadn’t sprinted, she would have been able to make the phone call no problem, but now she was waiting longer than it would have taken her to run at a normal pace just to catch her breath. She forced herself to calm down and made the phone call anyway, still laying on the floor.

Liz’s assistant answered the phone and put her on hold. Within seconds, Liz had picked up, “Hello Elle, thanks for calling me back.”

“Oh no problem, I was running. Just got back… sorry if I sound out of breath”, Elle said, admitting to the obvious. 

Liz gave a brief chuckle, “I didn’t mean to rush you! I just wanted to see if you had time next week to meet with Alec, Bill, and myself. You know who I’m talking about right?”

Elle rolled over onto her stomach leaving a sweaty imprint of her back on the tile, “Oh yeah, Alec Berg, Bill Hader… got it. Yes, I’m familiar with them.”

“Great, would next Wednesday at 10:00 am work?”

Elle nodded her head, letting a length of silence pass before realizing she needed to actually answer, “Yes, that should work.” 

Liz let her know that her assistant would email her with instructions on where to go and how to get to their building. Also, telling her that they were pretty casual, no need to wear a suit or anything, “Oh one more thing, so Bill is in Toronto filming, so he won’t actually be in the room, but we’ll video conference him in.”

Elle tried to let out the most silent sigh of relief, “Ohh, yeah yeah yeah, that’s right. That’s cool.”

“Cool, okay see you next week. Bye Elle.” 

“Bye Liz, thank you for this!” Elle hung up the phone. Of course she knew that Bill was on the set of It 2, filming in Toronto. She had seen videos and photos of him grabbing coffee, handing out pieces of cake to teenagers, and grabbing dinner with the rest of the cast. That was about two months ago, so surely they would be wrapping up soon.

She laid there on the cold tile, staring up at the ceiling for a long time. This was it. Her big moment, everything that she had been working towards. She was being interviewed for one of the best comedies on television right now, a position that could transform her career but she had one huge problem. “How the hell am I going to act normal around _Bill Hader_?”

In the days leading up to her interview, she abandoned looking at anything with Bill Hader’s face. She stopped lurking around on fan sites and worked to purge him from her brain. She wanted to go into the interview feeling completely aloof about who he was, his characters, his lack of fashion, his shoulders, _his jawline_ … “Dammit” she thought. “Just stop thinking about him.”

Her whole effort was in reality pretty fruitless. But at least she could tell herself that she tried.

The day of the interview, Elle styled her long dirty blond hair into loose waves and wore a smart but casual outfit. She wore a sleeveless black blouse that showed off her arm tattoos and a burnt orange high-waisted cropped gaucho pants. Instead of her normal footwear of sneakers, she put on a pair of black wedge pumps. The pants combined with the heels made her look and feel about 6 inches taller than she actually was. 

The receptionist lead her into a conference room deep inside of an office building. She sat there quietly waiting on Alec and Liz to show up while making the most awkward small talk with the IT guy who was setting up the video conference line. Somehow he had steered the conversation to his personal passion, cured sausages. Elle had pulled out her phone and started typing up the conversation because it was honestly comedy gold.

Within a few minutes the giant screen came to life, and there he was. Bill Hader. At least his face.

“Can you see me?” Bill said. 

“Yeah, now let me get the camera in here selected… and there. Can you see the room?” said David the IT guy. 

“Yes, Hi! Are you Elle?” Bill said. His eyes went wide. He looked so handsome she thought, his hair was long and he was covering it up with that Mammoth Track Club hat that he always wore.

“Uh yes! Hi!” Elle then proceeded to reach her hand out towards the screen and pantomime shaking his hand. Bill raised an eyebrow and Elle’s face turned bright red, “I don’t know why I did that…”

Bill started laughing.  _ She made him laugh. _ It was so hard to fight the giant smile spreading across her face. She had day-dreamed about this moment for years, finally coming face-to-face with Bill Hader and she just made him laugh.

“That was hilarious. Nice to meet you! Do they just have you hanging out in here with David?” Bill said.

Elle looked across the room as David packed up his stuff. “Yeah…”

“I’m headed out man, you let me know if you need me to come in here and fix it again.” David stopped and tipped his hat to Elle on the way out, “It was real nice to meet you ma’am.”

Elle was stifling her giggles, “Nice to meet you too David.” And then he left. It was just her and Bill alone in the room together… kind of, if you can be in the same room with someone even though they are on the other side of the continent.

Bill had a grin on his face. “He’s very sweet, just a little eccentric,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, I just learned soo much about cured sausage,” and with that statement, her giggles erupted. Meanwhile Bill was laughing too. “He has the best laugh,” she thought to herself.

“I’ll hire you on the spot if you took notes…” he said.

Butterflies filled her stomach as she pulled her phone from her lap, “Of course.”

It was good to break the ice with Bill before Liz and Alec got into the room. This is what she was most nervous about. She was great in an interview setting: funny, charming, adorable, and well-composed, but she was so worried about having to make a great impression on someone that she thought was gorgeous and super talented.

While Bill and Elle gained their composure, Alec and Liz walked in and shut the door.

“I’m so sorry we’re late, hope you didn’t mind waiting.” Alec said.

Elle reassured them it was totally fine and shook both their hands. It was your pretty typical job interview and really more about seeing if she got along with the three of them than anything. They loved her pilots she sent over and asked how she got into comedy and writing. They asked about her influences and what movies and books she liked. When she started talking about Monty Python, they asked who her favorite Python was and why.

“Michael Palin”, she said, “He is one of those comedic actors that doesn’t need to say a word. The way he reacts and “is” in the background makes him hilarious. That’s the type of comedy that I like. Not the overt jokes, but when either the situation itself is comedic or that it gives the actors in the scene the opportunity to be funny through the emotions they show or their movements.”

They all nodded and then Alec spoke up, “I thought you were going to say John Cleese…”

“Oh! He’s incredible too… one of the best ‘straight-men’ on TV, along with Phil Hartman and, not to kiss-ass here but, you too Bill.” Elle looked into the camera and then glanced down at Bill.

Bill smiled, “Thank you, that’s very sweet of you to say.” 

She nailed the rest of the interview. She was finishing up her questions about what the writer’s room was like, would she be given any opportunities to write and produce, and what do they anticipate being the biggest challenges… all normal interview stuff before she was finished.

“That answers all of my questions… anything else?” Elle shifted in her chair as her nerves started to return.

Alec looked at Liz and Bill, “That’s it from us… Bill did you have anything?”

“Umm, yeah. I am supposed to be wrapped later this week and will be back in LA. Would you want to grab coffee Tuesday of next week? I’d just like to meet you face to face and make sure you’re not some sort of weirdo.” Bill said teasingly.

Elle’s eyes went wide and she slowly nodded her head. “Oh sure… so you can see if I’m hiding goat legs under the table like some Mr. Tumnus, Chronicles of Narnia, creature.” She thought to herself,  _ Stop talking idiot! _

But the skin around Bill’s eyes crinkled as he erupted into giggles again. He caught his breath, “I like this one. That's rad… goat legs…” He snorted.

Alec shook his head smiling, “Thanks Elle, come with me and I’ll show you out.”

Elle said her goodbye’s and thanked them all for being there and taking time to interview her. Bill confirmed that her number was on her resume and that he’d reach out soon with details about next Tuesday.

Alec walked her out to the lobby, “So you should hear from Bill soon about next Tuesday and then we are hoping to make a decision by the end of next week.” He reached out to shake her hand.

“Thank you, it was really just such an amazing opportunity to meet all of you.” and with that Elle walked back to her car.

See the problem with celebrity crushes is you never actually think you will meet them face-to-face, let alone work with them. It’s all so innocent and you can lurk around for years on the internet amassing knowledge about them. All it takes is one day in your home watching interviews and videos on youtube for it to feel out of hand. In LA, that was different and so having a celebrity crush like the one she had on Bill was risky. She had known enough people who knew him that it was inevitable their paths would cross. But never did she imagine it would be like this… in an interview to work for him. 

She was so proud of herself for holding it together and not being a total weirdo… but could she hide how she felt about him when they were sitting across a table from one another? And even more, could she actually work for him?

Once she got home, she pulled her phone out of her purse and sure enough, a text message from an unknown number had arrived.

Bill : Hi, it Bill. Great to meet you today, I’ll let you know about Tuesday. 

Elle: It was great to meet you too.

Elle went back into her notes and copied a section:

Elle: BTW, from conversation with David IT guy “Now, the best sausage is gator. So much flavor from a giant lizard.”

Bill reacted Haha!

Bill: Good to know

Elle tapped on his number to add into her contacts. She saved him in her phone as “Bill Fucking Hader”.

  
  



	2. Chapter Two

Bill did make it back to LA that weekend, wrapping things up on the set of It: Chapter 2 in Toronto. He and Elle decided to meet at the S & W Diner for breakfast at 8:00 am. Elle knew from interviews with Bill that he always had a tendency to show up to places early. Elle was the opposite. She felt like she was always running late, so she made herself get up 30 minutes earlier. As she walked in the door, sure enough, Bill was already sitting at a table.

He stood up and waved her over towards him. He was wearing a white shirt, greyish brown pants, a hat, and thick rimmed black glasses. He seemed so much taller in real life, as he towered over Elle by a good ten inches. It was hard not to miss how broad and toned his shoulders and chest were when you looked at him. Even though he said he couldn’t put on muscle, it was very clear that he did. 

Elle had to talk herself through how to walk again because she was so nervous to meet him. She stood in front of him, he was holding his hand out to shake her hand but she could barely think about what to do next. Shake his hand… shake his hand she kept telling herself.

She took a deep breath to clear her head, “Hi!” She reached forward and shook his hand. “It's really great to meet you.”

“Glad to see you have normal human legs and not goat legs.” He smiled at her. “Is this table okay?”

Elle nodded and took a seat. She decided to just state something that was probably pretty obvious, but it helped her cope with her anxiety for her to acknowledge how she was feeling. She closed her eyes tight and squinted her nose, “I’m just going to let you know that I’m pretty nervous right now.”

His eyebrows shot up in worry. “Oh no! You don’t need to be nervous! Why are you nervous?” He said sweetly.

Elle looked down at her hands, not wanting to meet his eye contact, “I--uhmm… I really admire you. You’ve had this amazing career and you seem to have such a passion for learning things. I just really respect your curiosity and yeah… So this is a pretty surreal moment for me.”

Bill’s eyebrows lifted, “Oh wow! That’s really nice of you to say, thank you. Ya’ know, I’m pretty normal once you get to know me but yeah, I understand why you are nervous.” 

Elle met his eyes. They were impossibly blue and piercing behind those glasses. He had several days of stubble and although he looked tired, he was still so delightfully handsome. “Thanks…”, Elle looked back down at the table. “Okay, let’s just talk, How was your week?”

“Of course…” With this quick change in subject, Bill told her about wrapping up on the set of the movie and how glad he was to be home. He was still pretty tired but felt like he was able to get some rest over the weekend. He asked her how her week went and what she was working on right now. He was right, once they started talking, it was easy to forget that this was Bill Hader sitting across from her. Of course, every time she looked up she had to fight every urge not to sigh and stare. He then started asking some more serious job interview questions that they didn’t get to last week.

“So last one, what do you see as the biggest challenge you would have coming to work on this show?” Bill asked.

Elle looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “The biggest challenge I anticipate facing is translating my writing and my work to something that is way more cinematic than anything I’ve done before. With you being such a huge cinephile, all of that knowledge you have is expressed in the directing, the acting, the story, and how the show is shot. I don’t necessarily have as broad of a film knowledge foundation as you do. However, I’m excited to learn and gain experience from that”, she said.

Bill nodded along as she spoke. “That’s really sweet of you to notice that. Ya know, one of the reasons we want to offer you the job is because you have such a strong sitcom and sketch background… oh shit.” Bill covered his face with his hands.

Elle definitely heard his slip. They wanted to hire her. Bill Hader wanted to hire her. A huge smile spread across her face. “Yeah, I heard that.”

“Son of a bitch, I wasn’t supposed to say anything--” Bill muttered under his hands. “Well what I was going to say, is that because your background and previous work are a skill we want to add to the writer’s table, but you also demonstrated an eagerness to learn and take on more challenging work... “ He shrugged, “So the job is yours if you want it.”

Elle knew she should act coy and say that she needed to think it over, but inside she wanted to scream around the restaurant “YES! YES! YES!”. She struggled to find the words to say and looked down at her hands again, feeling herself blush. She chose her words very carefully, “Send me over the details about compensation, the dates for pre-, during, and post production, all of that stuff… and I’m sure we can come to an agreement.” In her own way, this was her saying yes.

Bill nodded again, understanding exactly what she was saying, “Got it. Plus that keeps me from having to tell them that I blew it.”

“Exactly”, said Elle, “I’ve got your back.”

“Good. Alec and I have already outlined where we are going for Season 2, and then the writer’s room starts in 2 weeks. We are going to start figuring out assignments for scenes and episodes next week...” Bill paused, “And I’ll also text you a list of films that we referenced in Season 1, and a few for Season 2… The ones you won’t be able to find on streaming, just let me know and you can borrow them from me. Sound good?”

Elle nodded, “Yes. Thank you so much, seriously. This is amazing.”

Bill finished his coffee, “Elle, ya know, you are really talented.” He paused and looked her in the eyes, “How are those nerves?”

Elle realized that the bundle of nerves she was feeling when she sat down were gone. Instead, they were replaced with excitement and gratitude. “Oh, totally gone. I’m just really fucking excited now… You’re right, I completely forgot that you are who you are.”

Bill nodded at her, “See totally normal… you ready to head out?”

“Yeah!” Elle stood up at the end of the table.

Bill stood up, too. They were too close for a handshake and paused awkwardly before Bill said, “Can I hug you? Is that weird?”

Elle laughed so hard she snorted, “No, not weird. I would love to hug you…”

Bill smiled, bending down and wrapping his arms around her for a friendly hug, “It was really nice to meet you in person." He held her for a beat before saying, "You smell really good--” he pulled back from her, “What is that?”

“Oh, Thanks.. Um, it's a combination of patchouli, sandalwood, and amber oils.” Elle blushed as she stepped away from their embrace.

“It's really nice… Okay, I’ve now made things weird.” Bill said.

“It only stays weird because you keep saying you are making it weird… it's cool. Jesus, and I’m the one who is a fan of you!” Elle teased while walking out of the cafe to her car.

Bill followed her out. He raised the pitch of his voice, “Oh my god, you're like totally a fan of me?” He teased her.

Elle turned around and glared at him unamused. If this was how their working relationship was starting, it was going to be really difficult for her to not develop a crush on her boss. Was he flirting with her or just teasing her? She couldn’t tell. He smirked at her.

Elle let a smile across her face, “I’ll talk to you soon, I’m sure.”

“Yep, I’ll call you in the next few days.” He started walking towards his car before he turned around and waved, “Byeeee!”

“Bye Bill!” she shouted at his back before sliding into the driver’s seat of her car. She pulled out of her parking spot and waited until she was on the freeway to squeal with satisfaction. She got the job!

A few days later she got a text from Bill:

Bill: Can you act?

Elle: The fuck for?

Bill reacted HaHa!

Bill: About to call you on speaker and offer you the job. Alec is with me.

Elle: Ohhh… Yeah I got this.

Bill reacted thumbs up

A few minutes later Elle saw that Bill Fucking Hader was calling her and she laughed that she saved him in her phone like that. She thought she should probably change it, but then immediately decided to leave it.

“Hi Bill!” she said enthusiastically.

“Hey Elle, you’re on speaker with Alec and I.” Bill said.

“Hi” said Alec.

“Hi Alec, What’s going on?” she said.

Bill cleared his throat, “Well, we wanted to ask if you wanted to come work on the writing team with us for Barry?”

Elle smiled that this was now officially happening, “Oh my god. OH MY GOD! I don’t know what to say. Wow, this is incredible.”

Alec started to share with her the compensation and Elle’s knees buckled. It was more money than she had made in her entire life. She didn’t hear too much after that but remembered what Bill said the start date was and felt fine about blacking out for a few seconds.

“We understand if you need to take some time and think about it.” Alec finished.

Before Elle could stop herself she blurted out, “Yes, I’ll take it. I’ll take the job.”

“That’s great Elle, we are really excited to work with you.” Bill said. “Alec, do we need to send her some paperwork and shit?”

Alec replied, “Yes Bill. Elle, someone will send over some ‘paperwork and shit’ for you to read over and sign. Get it back to us when you can.”

“Will do… seriously, thank you”, said Elle.

“You’re welcome. We’ll talk soon” said Bill before ending the phone call.

Elle plopped down on her couch, “Holy fucking shit balls…” she said. Carl the Cat meowed and hopped in her lap. A few minutes later her phone buzzed. It was a text from Bill.

Bill: He bought it. Great job buddy. Talk to you soon.

Elle reacted with a heart.

Oh fuck she thought, should I have sent a heart? She looked at Carl and started scratching behind his ears, “Carl, our whole lives just changed.”

  
  



	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle starts her new job.

Elle had spent the weekend before she started her new job trying to source the films that Bill had sent her. Inevitably, there were several she could not find. She had sent him a text with a list of DVD’s that she would need to borrow from him. They had developed a casual and teasing report with one another ever since he interviewed her over breakfast, that continued in their text communication leading up to her first day.

As she walked into the HBO building that morning, she knew she was nervous about starting her new job but she was also nervous about seeing Bill. When people establish a specific tone for how they interact with one another through text, it can make being in-person feel strange. Elle suddenly felt uncertain about how her and Bill would get along. Would it be as easy as it had been over text, or would it be awkward?

When she arrived, she was led down the maze of hallways back to the cluster of rooms where the team of writers and producers worked. She was surprised to find her own office with her name already on the door. It was a modest windowless room with two chairs and her desk. Sitting on her desk was a tote bag clearly stuffed with HBO swag, a stack of 3 dvds with a note on top, a plant, and a card. She thanked the woman that dropped her off and sat down her box of personal items. 

She picked up the blue sticky note on top of the dvds. It said, “To begin… -Bill”. The plant was from one of the other writers and the card was signed by her new team welcoming her. She was eyeing everything on her desk when behind her was a knock at the door.

She turned and saw Alec standing in the doorway, “Hey! Welcome, how’s it going?” he asked.

“Good, just getting set up! How are you?”

“I’m good. Can I come talk to you about what this first week will be like?” Alec said, pointing at a chair.

“Oh of course sure!” Elle sat down.

Alec went over what to expect this week. She wasn’t the only new writer that they hired and that they were going to spend the first week getting everyone up to speed on the story. This would also provide everyone an opportunity to get to know one another. One of the producers had put together a few team building activities. He made sure she understood that this wasn’t a normal week, but that no week ever felt normal. 

“...and don’t ever be afraid to ask me questions. Yes, I’m a showrunner but I’m here to teach you as much as you need to know.”

This was absolutely amazing. Alec Berg had a long history in TV and was easily one of the most skilled writers. She was so excited to learn from him and to work alongside him.

“Thanks! I’m really excited to be here.” Elle nodded.

Alec pointed to the stack of dvd’s on her desk, “I see Bill is already giving you research.”

“Oh yeah, I couldn’t find these.” Elle picked up the stack and started to look through them.

“He’s on a big Andrzej Wajda kick this year--”

“What about Wajda?” Bill interrupted and popped his head in the door, “Elle! Hi! Welcome!--Wait what did you say about Wajda Alec?”

Alec rolled his eyes, “I said you’re really in to Wajda right now.”

“Well, yeah that box set came out and its really hard to find Polish art films anywhere. He’s an amazing director and... “ Bill paused. “I’m rambling… Elle, how are you?”

“Hi Bill! I’m good.” Butterflies filled her stomach. He was just so good looking and it was impossible for her to not stare at him. She also loved the way his voice changed when he started talking about films, it was almost child-like how excited he got.

“We’re going to let you get settled and we’ll see you in the conference room at 10 okay?” said Alec. He stood up out of the chair and started walking out.

“Sounds good - Oh one more thing… Is there a place to get coffee around here?” she asked.

“Yeah, there’s a coffee shop down the block.” Bill said as he walked out the door.

She started unpacking her things and getting settled in. She had someone from IT getting her laptop set up and making sure she was signed into her email, and then she started the process of signing and reading a bunch of paperwork and manuals. It was 9:35 and her head was spinning. 

She needed coffee. 

Bill said there was a place down the block. She grabbed her keys, wallet and phone and headed out the door. She was not too far down the hallway when she heard footsteps coming up behind her. They sounded like they were moving fast so she moved to the side, but was surprised when Bill came up behind her.

“You going to grab coffee?” he said.

“Yeah, want to join me?”

Bill nodded. “So how’s the first morning going?”

Elle was having to race to keep up with his long legs, “Um good, lots of paperwork to read.”

“Oh yeah--do you need me to slow down?” Bill said, noticing her slight jog.

“Oh god yes, thank you. Jesus, you’re like a giraffe.” Elle winced, was she supposed to be poking fun at her boss? 

Bill laughed, “Sorry, well this is going to be a good couple of weeks. We’ll spend lots of time together in the writers’ room and I’m sure we will all be unable to look each other in the eye because we will know so many dark secrets about one another.”

“Oh that doesn’t sound scary at all…” Elle trailed off.

“Oh its not like that” Bill turned and looked at her, “So everyone has to sign an NDA, even me. What is said in the writers’ room, stays there. I believe in letting the emotion drive the story, so it ends up that we talk about emotion and personal experiences a lot. Like, if you had any experience with an abusive partner--wait, do you?”

Elle raised an eyebrow, “Nope.”

“Shit… I mean, good for you… fuck.. I sound like an ass.”

They reached the coffee shop and Bill opened up the door for her, which kind of threw her off. They ordered their black coffees, and Bill insisted he pay for hers because it was her first day. Bill opened the door again for her when they left.

“Man, I haven’t had someone open the door for me since I was back home. Thanks!” she said.

“You’re welcome… Where are you from again?” Bill asked.

“Texas, a very small town to the east to be specific. It's not the cool small town part of Texas it's the boring small town part, where you just went to Chili’s a lot in high school.”

Bill laughed, “Sounds like Tulsa…”

“Not far from it actually…”

They walked in silence, before Bill spoke, “Wait… how old are you?”

Elle raised an eyebrow, “I’m 35, how old did you think I was?”

Bill shook his head, “I don’t know, I thought you were younger for some reason but then you talked about hanging out at Chili’s and it was just a very 90’s thing to do”

“Maybe it's because I wear a lot of sunscreen?.”

Bill shook his head again, “No, I think it's because you're short.”

And there it was, the playful and flirtatious teasing she was a little afraid of. “Well… fuck you Hader.” Elle was 5’4” and hated wearing heels. Most people never described her as beautiful or elegant, or even pretty for that matter. She was always adjectives like cute or adorable.

Bill smiled at her response, “I’m so sorry, I just really have the overwhelming urge to pick on you. I don’t know why.”

They had made their way back to the writers’ offices, “Well maybe I will start picking on you then.”

“Well maybe I’ll start picking on you then…” Bill said mockingly to her. 

Elle grabbed her notebook and laptop off her desk while Bill waited on her. She spun around playfully angry at him, “Stop it!”

He mimicked her further, trying to say the words with her. She kept starting and then stopping before finally just growling at him (which he also mimicked) and walking away. She walked into the writers’ room and there were two seats left right next to each other. One was right next to Alec and had Bill’s notes in front of it, the next one was empty and was apparently where she was sitting. Bill followed her in and pulled out the chair next to hers.

She looked over at him before plopping down in her chair, “Oh great…” Bill almost started to say something before she leaned over and glared at him pursing her lips.

He started laughing, “Okay… I’m done. For now.”

As annoyed as she was, and she really was annoyed, a part of her was living for the attention that he was giving her. A constant narrative ran through her mind about him being her boss, that he was different than the persona she knew, and that she needed to focus all of her energy into this job, but dammit did she still have a crush on him.

Everyone went around and introduced themselves, there was Emily, Duffy, Liz, Jason, Taofik, Alec, and Bill. The first thing they talked about was the story arch of the entire show including how they were expecting it to end. There were slide shows of last year’s white board (which is where they tracked everything that needed to go into each episode) and then Bill passed around copies of his notes to go into this year. 

The first few days were exhausting. They had a lot to do and a shorter time period to do it in because Bill “had to go off and film a blockbuster movie.” There was also a strange energy because of all the Emmy nominations that had been picked up. There was so much “for your consideration” coverage around LA that it felt like Bill Hader’s face was everywhere.

Throughout the week, Bill continued to pick on her. To him, it felt more like a running bit. If Elle was standing in the hallway, he would walk up next to her and hip-check her hard enough to lose her balance. If she had food in the writer’s room, he would try and eat it or knock it out of her hand. He would often mock her and goad her into fits of frustration only to remind her that she was really adorable when she was angry. 

In turn, Elle would rail him for his awful fashion choices, steal his kombucha, call him old man as much as she could, and scare the shit out of him when he was pacing up and down the hallway. 

But at the same time, all of them in the writer’s room became increasingly close. Bill was right. Elle revealed emotions and insecurities within this group of co-workers that even her closest friends were not aware of. She talked about how she constantly deals with imposter syndrome. They talked about the feelings behind not being the person other people want you to be. They discussed what it took to make changes in their lives and how they could relate to Barry or Sally or Hank.

Elle’s seat in the writers’ room was officially the seat next to Bill. Maybe it was just proximity or at least that’s what she was always telling herself, but anytime she talked about something that was close to bringing her to the verge of tears, Bill would always put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. It was sweet.

On Friday, someone had brought cookies for the writers. Elle grabbed a chocolate chip and a peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie and set them next to her coffee on a napkin for her to munch on throughout the morning. She then took a seat and opened up her laptop. 

Bill walked into the room. “Who brought cookies?” He asked as he kicked Elle’s chair, startling her.

“HBO sent them” responded Duffy. 

Instead of grabbing one off of the tray, Bill reached over and broke off a piece of one of Elle’s cookies. 

At first, she did not realize what had happened. But then it was as if everything was moving in slow motion as Bill raised the piece of cookie, a piece of peanut butter cookie, to his mouth. Elle’s reflexes kicked in and she reached out, smacking the cookie out of his hand. The cookie sailed across the room before smashing into the wall sending crumbs everywhere.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Bill shouted at her. 

She stood up, her chair flying backwards. “Do you have a fuckin death wish Hader?” She shouted, glaring at him. “That had peanuts in it, you could have died, idiot!”

Bill panicked and reached his hands far away from him. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Elle shouted at him while pointing out the door, “Go wash your hands and don’t touch your face!”

Elle shooed everyone out of the room back to their offices while she cleaned up the crumbs that flew everywhere, carefully wiping down everything.

After cleaning up she stormed into Bill’s office and forcefully flung open the door. Bill winced, and Elle stepped inside.

“You HAVE to stop stealing my food!!!” She yelled. “Seriously, what if you ate that? Do you even have an epi-pen here? I don’t want to be responsible for YOU going into anaphylactic shock. And I know you have this overwhelming urge to pick on me (which is a tad childish by the way), but Jesus, Bill. YOU COULD HAVE DIED!”

Bill crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows. “You done?”

Elle sighed, “Yes, I think.”

He took a deep breath, “First off, yes I have an epi-pen that I carry in my bag. Second…” He paused here and looked down at his feet, “thank you. You’re right, that could have been really shitty.”

Bill stood, walked over to Elle and hugged her tight. “I’m sorry for picking on you so much.” He pulled back and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Seriously thank you though.”

Elle looked into his puppy dog eyes. “Will you stop eating my food then? Because I like peanut butter. I like peanut butter a lot.” She said pointing her finger to her chest. 

Bill nodded, “I’ll stop eating your food.”

“Okay, also I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said looking up at him. 

Bill nodded, “It’s okay. I deserved it.” He wrapped his arms around her neck and hugged her again. Elle rested her arms around his waist, and leaned her head into his chest. Bill sighed again, “You’re still so fuckin’ short though.”

Elle let out a short throaty growl, “Fuck you.” She said quietly. She squeezed his waist… “Jeez Hader, do you even work out?”

“Hey!—“

Elle pulled back, “I’m totally kidding, your chest is all firm and shit.”

“Oh, now you say something nice…” he said letting his arms fall back to his sides. 

When she pulled away from their embrace, there was something about the way he looked at her that made her heart beat a little faster. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill notices that Elle doesn't feel so great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last chapter had a lot of filler, so I wanted to post this one too.

It was a weird day in Los Angeles. The air was thick and the atmosphere felt heavy, almost as if a cloud of melancholy had settled on the city. Things were taking longer than they should, which is why Bill was pulling into his parking spot at HBO at 10 am. He had a few things he needed to do, but everything took twice the amount of time he allotted. He hated running late.

He felt his phone vibrate and saw a message from Elle: Coffee on your desk buddy.

This made him smile. They had a standing break they would take together during the week at 10… maybe a little earlier, or later depending on meetings, and sometimes it would get cancelled all together. But if one went and the other couldn’t, coffee was always supplied.

As he walked into their offices, he popped his head in Elle’s door. She was hunched over her laptop, just staring at the screen.

“Hi, thanks for the coffee.” He said.

Elle’s eyes moved slowly over to him, “Oh no problem. How are you?”

Something was off with her. Bill wasn’t quite sure what it was but it was like a dense fog was in her eyes. “I’m fine, are you feeling okay?”

She gently massaged her temples, “Yeah, just didn’t sleep well and kind of feel weird.”

Bill furrowed his eyebrows, “Do you need to go home?”

She slowly looked up at him, “Nah, I’m good. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, let me know if you need anything,” said Bill. He left her office and walked down to his own but he couldn’t shake this feeling that he had about her. 

Bill did not see Elle leave her office even to get lunch. This was not like her. She would normally come find some excuse to talk with him, make fun of his clothes, or just give him a hard time. Bill was headed to the supply room when he walked past her office and saw her with her head laying down on her desk. “Elle? Are you okay?” he asked from the hallway.

Her head was laying on her arms. She shook her head without raising it. “Migraine” she groaned.

Bill slipped into her office and shut the door behind him. He too suffered from migraines and understood how debilitating they could be. Everyone was different though, some people felt like their skin was crawling, others saw auras. But he knew one thing, she needed to get home and didn’t need to stay here. He crouched down next to her desk, “Have you taken anything?”

She didn’t lift her head, but nodded, “Its not working.” A quiet sniffle came from her.

Bill instinctively and without thinking started to gently rub her back, “Elle, what’s happening? Like can you see or do you feel like you’re going to throw up?” he asked. When Bill got migraines, his vision would get big spots in the middle of it, leaving him unable to see.

She shook her head, “My vision is all watery and blurry, super sensitive to light and sound, and pain shooting around my head.. But it will clear up eventually.”

Bill shook his head. “You need to go home… I’m going to drive you home okay.”

Elle lifted her head and winced, “No… its fine, I can get an uber or something.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll get you home okay… wait here.”

He could tell Elle wanted to protest but was too weak to do so. “Okay, thanks Bill”, she said before collapsing her head back to her desk.

Bill ran back to his office and grabbed his blue hoodie off the back of the door. Today already felt like a total waste, what was one more errand going to hurt? He walked quickly back down the hallway to her office and helped her pick up the stuff she needed to take home. She tried to take her laptop but Bill protested and said she didn’t need to work. She would fight him on it, but would appreciate it later. “Here, put this on”, he said and helped her put on the hoodie.

“Thanks” she said.

He carefully led her out to the parking garage to his car, her hand clutching his bicep, her hands were soft and clammy against his bare skin. He opened up the car door and helped her inside. She pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over her head and put on her sunglasses, trying to block out as much light as possible. 

He drove her home in complete silence. It was strangely soothing and comforting to be able to be quiet with someone, neither one of them feeling the need to fill the space with anything other than their physical presence.

Bill helped her get into her house, even leading her back into her bedroom. “Elle, just lay down. What do you need?”

Elle kicked off her shoes and crawled beneath the covers, “Could you get me a glass of water and an ice pack from the freezer? It should be in the door.”

Bill nodded. He grabbed her a glass of water and the ice pack, then went around her room and the rest of her house closing blinds and curtains to make it as dark as possible. Elle had a nice modest little house, full of character. It was cheery and cozy, and smelled strongly of sandalwood. It was just like her. Bill smiled as he took the opportunity to look around. “Where’s your phone buddy?”

Elle moaned as she rolled over, “Its in my purse, somewhere. But Bill…”

“Its fine, I was married, and I have two sisters, I know that women’s purses are disasters.”

Elle grunted in defeat.  He came back to her side and set her phone on the table next to her.

“Did you go snooping around my house Hader?” She asked, her voice muffled by blankets and pillows.

“Mmm… it’s nice. I like it. Definitely beats my dad pad.” He sat down next to her on the edge of the bed. “I’ll check in on you later, get some rest.”

“Okay, oh your sweatshirt!” She stirred under the covers.

Bill put a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll get it back from you later.”

Elle nodded before curling back into a ball to fall asleep. Bill was quietly getting up to leave when she stirred again, “Hey Hader— Thank you.”

He smiled at this mound of blankets and pillows shaped like Elle, “I’ve always got your back buddy.” He silently slipped out of her house and drove back to work. 

He felt something warm and mysterious growing inside of him. As he got back to the office, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. The way her hair fell around her face, her smile, her infectiously loud laugh, even the way she smelled… he remembered it from the day they met.

==============

It was early evening before Bill and Alec decided to call it quits for the day. Bill’s stomach was growling loudly and he was in much need of food. He had checked his phone several times throughout the afternoon, waiting to hear from Elle. He knew she was probably sleeping and decided not to text her, and let her rest. 

It was 7:00 and he was about to head to Whole Foods to pick up something for dinner when he decided to give her a call. It rang a few times before she answered on the other end.

“Hello?” her voice sounded groggy and tired.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Bill asked. 

Elle paused, “Actually feeling a bit better.”

Bill grinned, “Good. I was calling because I’m headed to Whole Foods to pick up dinner and wanted to see if I could bring you anything-- wait no, you don’t get the option, I’m going to bring you food. What do you want?”

“Bill! But I live so---” she said.

“Fuck that, it takes just as long to get to your house as it does anywhere else in LA. What do you want?” he asked again, interrupting her.

Elle growled in frustration, “Fine. Sorry, its just really hard for me to accept help…”

“Well, you’re fuckin shit out of luck bra....” He said using his so-cal impression.

She paused again, “ ummm Chicken Noodle Soup would be great, with crackers please.”

“You got it, anything else?”

“Nope, thank you. I’m going to try and get a little bit more sleep. There’s a hide-a-key next to the right of the garage door if I don’t answer the door. I’ll text you the code.”

“Sounds great. See you in a bit”

Bill picked up a salad for himself and soup like Elle had asked. He came over and used her hide-a-key to open her door. Her house was quiet and dark, especially now that the sun was setting. Bill set the soup on the counter and quietly walked down the hallway to her bedroom. “Hey…” he whispered quietly.

Elle groaned as her arms stretched out. She lifted the covers from over her face and carefully sat up in the bed. “Hi, come.. Sit.” She pointed to the corner of the bed. Bill obeyed.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“A lot better… seriously… thank you. I owe you.” Elle still had his hoodie on over her head, wisps of her hair poked out from beneath it and the sleeves extended past her hands. 

“You don’t owe me anything… I got your soup. Its on the counter,” Bill stood up, “I should leave, I just wanted to check on you.”

"Wait...", Elle looked down at the covers, “Do you want to stay and eat dinner with me?” Her hands curled up into little sleeved fists, “You know so your food doesn’t get cold.”

“I got a salad, salads should be cold.” Bill said flatly, crossing his arms over his chest. He was fighting to keep a straight face but knew Elle could see he was about to break.

She was still looking down, “Oh, yeah, but it could still get all like weird and salad-ee…” By this time, a huge grin had spread across Bill’s face and he started giggling, “Ah-- fuck you Hader!”

Once Bill had stopped laughing, “Of course.”

Elle shook her head, “Cool… now get out.”

Bill’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “Wait--”

“No just get out of my room, I need to put on pants.” She whined.

Bill straightened up and his eyes got wide. “Ohhh okay, yeah… ummm I’ll go grab my food from the car.”

In a few minutes, Bill met her in the kitchen and set their food out on the kitchen table. Elle came in and sat down.

“By the way, thank you for closing all the curtains… I felt like I was in a cave.”

Bill smiled, “I used to get really bad migraines. There was this sketch called Appalachian Emergency Room on SNL and I got one right before I was supposed to go out. I couldn’t see shit, and Sudeikis has to lead me on. It was terrifying.”

“I think I remember that one, that sounds scary… I’m glad I just had to be lead through the office looking like the unibomber.” Elle finally pulled the hoodie from off of her head.

“Yeah but like a cute unibomber… one that’s totally not threatening.” Bill blushed a little bit at calling her cute. 

“Mmm next Halloween costume is sexy unibomber. She’s wearing sunglasses, a hoodie, and nothing else… Where’s the goatee? _Oh you don’t wanna know_.” 

Bill snorted and laughed hard, “God, you’re funny, ya know. Like really funny.”

Elle smiled at him between sips of her soup, “Stop it… I can’t take compliments.”

Bill was crunching on his salad lost in thought. He genuinely enjoyed being around Elle, which was a new feeling for him. He hadn’t found many women that he could just be himself around lately. He didn’t feel like he had to be “on” or constantly telling SNL stories to make her laugh, even though he did just tell one… _fuck_. 

Elle tipped the bowl up to her face and sat it down, “Mmmm…”

“Good soup?” he said.

“I just really like broth--” Elle’s hands flew to her mouth and her eyes grew wide.

“Did you just quote  _ Barry _ ?”

“Shit!” Her head hung in embarrassment, “Yes, I did.” 

Bill started laughing which encouraged Elle to laugh. Tears were streaming down his face as he tried to gain his composure, “Oh god, that was… that was so great.”

An awkward amount of silence filled the air between them. Bill could either make some excuse to leave which would be completely and totally acceptable in this situation. But on the other hand, he could try to get to know her a bit better. They’ve shared some pretty personal things together in the writer’s room but there was something that had never come up. Bill tried to come up with the right words to say.

“Thanks for inviting me to stay, its nice to uh… not eat alone?” Bill said.

Elle nodded, “Totally, yeah eating alone gets old after a while, but you know what really gets old?”

“What?” Bill leaned back in the chair.

“Cooking for one! Its so hard sometimes unless I just want to eat spinach for four days straight.”

Bill adjusted himself in the chair, “Yeah, that’s what I’m doing right now. My trainer has me on this diet where I just eat a bunch of kale and chicken, but I get one cheat day every week, which is nice.”

He noticed that Elle looked a little nervous. It was a little strange to be in her house with her alone. She looked down at her lap for a while before she spoke. “These chairs aren’t very comfortable, you want to move to the couch?” Elle asked.

“Oh... Sure”, Bill stood and picked up their trash from the table.

“Bill-- no I can clean up!” Bill stopped and glared at her, “Okay, okay, Thanks… That’s very sweet of you.”

They joined one another on the couch. From far down the hallway Bill heard a series of soft curious meows.

Elle turned her head, “Hey Carl! You want to come meet someone?” Carl let out another meow. Elle turned to Bill, “He’s super chatty.” Carl made his way into the living room and started sniffing at Bill’s feet. 

Bill reached down very slowly to pet Carl and the cat started to softly sniff his hand before taking a few quick licks. “Oh I’m so sorry, he only does that if he likes you.”

“Its fine, he’s sweet.” Bill started to scratch behind Carl’s ears. Carl jumped up and curled up next to Bill.

Elle smiled, “This is weird, he’s not normally like this with guys…”

Bill raised an eyebrow, “Do you have many guys over?”

She cocked her head to the side and chuckled, “Uh-- no. Honestly, I haven’t even been on a date in like… 3 years?”

“WHAT?!” Bill said in disbelief.

Elle hung her head, “I know, it is bad.”

“What’s wrong with you?” he said teasingly.

“Hey! Asshole!” Elle reached over and punched him in the shoulder, “Ow I think I hurt my hand…” she joking cradled her hand.

“Oh fuck you” he flipped her off before he started laughing. “Okay, seriously, why haven’t you been on a date in 3 years?”

She pulled her knees into her chest, “I decided 5 years ago that I was going to take this whole comedy writer thing really seriously. I had been in a relationship at the time, but he didn’t support what I was doing. I ended it with him because I didn’t have the energy to keep fighting for someone who wanted me to be someone different.” 

He frowned, “That’s awful..”

“Yeah, it sucked… So I dated around for a while but realized I was spending so much time worried that I wasn’t likeable enough to men, that I was losing focus on myself. So, I said fuck dating and just decided that being solo made me feel better… Trying to be successful in a career is hard enough, I just didn’t have the capacity to add on trying to put that much effort into a relationship.”

Bill sighed, “I understand that…”

A sad smile crept across Elle’s face, “Yeah… I figured you would. How is… all of that? Sorry, is that awkward?”

He stretched an arm out along the back of the couch and turned his body towards her, bringing his knee up onto the couch. “You’re fine, umm its all right. Maggie’s a great mom and um… I’ve been going to therapy. Which is really good and is helping out a lot. Some days its really hard because I just like being in a relationship ya know, and I miss having a partner. Ya know, kind of like what you said, I need to figure out stuff on my own before I can invest in someone else again. But I do really miss just, like, companionship.” 

Bill would never tell her this, but THIS that was happening is what he missed about being in a relationship with someone. He missed caring for and about someone else and having that returned. He was shocked to learn that Elle had been single for so long, and not even interested in a relationship until the right thing came along. He respected the hell out of her for that. 

She nodded, “Yeah, but you know what has really helped me? Its this thing called pornography…”

His face broke into a smile, “WHAT?!” he said in his old timey voice, “What is this… pornography that you speak of? Tell me! Tell me about _porn-o-graphy_.”

“I think you should look this up on your own Bill,” she said laughing.

He kept up the bit, “I will! I will look it up right now!” Bill played like he was going to look it up on his phone

“Oh god, please don’t!” Elle lunged forward and slapped his phone out of his hands and into his lap. Carl stirred next to him.

They sat there together on the couch laughing, until finally Bill was able to catch his breath, “eeehhh… I should probably get going.”

Elle nodded, “Yeah, I need to get some rest.” Elle stood up with Bill and walked with him to the door. She slowly started unzipping the hoodie he let her borrow, “Oh here, this is yours. You should probably wash it.”

“Eh, I’ll just leave it in the backseat and let the LA sun wash it.” Bill shrugged. 

She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his chest, “Thanks Bill, really. Thank you for your help today, I really really appreciate it.”

Bill was shocked by the hug, but gently melted into her. “You’re welcome. Get some rest, we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

She stepped back from him and he opened the door. “All right see ya tomorrow.”

“See ya.” Bill walked out the door holding the hoodie in his hands. He got in his car to head back to his apartment. He drove in complete silence, just to reflect and be present with what he was feeling in the moment. As he got home to his apartment, he grabbed the hoodie and brought it inside. 

Dropping his keys by the door, he sat down and buried his face in the fabric. It smelled like her. This nervous feeling had been growing in him all night and it was then that he finally decided to admit to himself what he had been fighting… he definitely had feelings for her. He pulled the sweatshirt away from his face and muttered quietly, “Fuck.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill gets lost and Elle helps him find his way. Then Bill does something extremely unprofessional and has to deal with the consequences. But its not as bad as it seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of my previous chapters haven't included any explicit sexual content. This one does. Just giving you a warning! Also sorry for the late post, I took yesterday off and figured posting on Tuesday would be ok!

A couple of weeks had passed since what Elle was referring to as “The Migraine Incident” and to be honest, things were kind of weird between her and Bill. He wasn’t quite avoiding her. It was more of a concentrated effort not to be alone in the same room with her. On Tuesday, they were supposed to meet to talk about her writing episode six and Bill stood out in the hallway the whole time barking ideas at her. It was strange.

Elle had asked to borrow one more movie from him, Ashes and Diamonds (him and fuckin’ Wajda). She walked down to Bill’s office to pick it up but he was not there. She went down to Alec’s office instead, “Have you seen Hader?” she asked.

Alec looked up, “Hmmm… last I saw him he was pacing up and down the hallway… But I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“That’s odd… he’s been acting weird lately, its not just me right?”

“Ehhh, it might just be you… meaning he might just be acting weird around you… but come on in and sit.” Alec invited her in, “Here, I’ll text him. What did you need?”

“He was supposed to bring a movie for me to borrow… I was going to grab it before I headed out.” Elle sat down across from Alec.

“Let’s call him.” Alec put his phone on speaker. 

Bill picked up. “Hey man…”

“Hey, where’d you go?”

Bill sighed loudly, “Dude, I’m fuckin’ lost.”

Alec looked up at Elle confused, “Lost? What do you mean lost?”

“Lost. I was pacing and I must have got turned around or something, and I don’t know where the hell I am.”

Elle’s hands covered her mouth to keep from giggling but she snorted. She was sure Bill heard it.

“--Am I on speaker? Who is in there?” Bill said.

Alec looked up at her. “Just tell him.” he said quietly.

“Its just me... Elle,” she said. 

“Jesus Christ, can someone come find me?” Bill said.

Alec looked at Elle, “You want to help?”

“Ummm-- do you see anything familiar around you Bill?” she asked. Honestly, she was afraid she was going to get lost too but decided to help in any way she could.

“NO!” he shouted, “Sorry, no, I don’t.”

Elle pulled out her phone, “Okay, Hader, I want you to share your location with me all right? It will let me see where you are on my phone. Once I get close, I’ll start shouting for you.” Elle walked him through the instructions on how to share his location and then hung up.

Her and Alec couldn’t contain their laughter any more and both started cackling. “Oh god, this is… so silly.” 

“Dude, he’s pissed… I need to go find him.” Elle said.

“Good luck.”

Elle pulled up her phone and looked at this location. She honestly didn’t realize how far away he was or how he could have walked that far. She twisted and turned her ways through the hallways, and then outside, before she saw that he was close.

She called for him but still nothing. Finally, she heard shouting from behind a door. She knocked, “Hader?!” she yelled again. 

Bill opened the door and almost knocked her down with a hug. “Oh my god, thank you.”

Elle pulled away, “Okay, I get it. You were very lost. Let’s just walk around the outside of the building so that doesn’t happen again…” 

“I feel like an idiot.” he said.

“They are new offices Bill, it's okay.” Elle patted him on the shoulder.

They started walking together, Elle leading the way.

They were mostly silent, but Elle thought she could talk to him about why he was being distant this week.

“Hey, umm--- Is everything okay with you?” she asked.

Bill adjusted his glasses and furrowed his brow. “Kind of… I’ve been dealing with some shit…”

She decided to keep probing, “Do… you… want to talk about it?”

Bill stopped in his tracks. He looked at her like he was about to say something, and then shut his eyes tight. “Ummm--- Not really…” he answered.

Elle shrugged, “Okay, no pressure.”

Ever since he took care of her after her migraine, Bill couldn't stop thinking about her. He tried putting space between them, he tried avoiding her, but nothing was working. However, he really did appreciate that even though there was something going on with him, that she didn't pressure him to talk about it. He needed time to figure out how he felt, and if he could do anything about it.

Bill nodded, “Thanks… did you need something from me?”

Elle turned around and started walking backwards, “Yep! Did you bring that Wadja DVD?”

“FUCK!” Bill shouted, “I left it at home.”

“That’s cool, no worries… I could come by and get it after work?” she asked.

They approached the door but Bill stopped again, “Actually… so I was going to type up this whole thing with time stamps and scenes that I wanted you to pay attention to but honestly, it would just be easier if I could watch it with you.” Bill looked down at his feet, “So do you want to just watch it together?”

Elle could feel the blood draining from her limbs as her mind jumped to a million different thoughts. Was he asking her out? “Uhhhmmm--” What was that sound she just made?

Bill looked up, “Oh no… like completely platonic, work thing. Sorry, god that did not sound like I thought it would.”

Her palms tingled as the panic rising in her started to fade. But the panic was soon placed with an aching feeling of disappointment. “Got it… Yeah that’s cool. Tomorrow night work?”

Bill nodded. They had made their way back to the offices. When she delivered Bill, everyone came out of their offices and clapped.

Bill flipped everyone off and said, “Go fuck off… all of you.” Before shutting the door.

***

Bill told Elle to eat before she came over as he was dieting and she probably wanted to eat more than green shit and poultry. She scarfed down a burrito in her car while driving to his apartment. 

She chucked the foil wrapper in a trash can in the hallway and then knocked on the door to Bill’s apartment. She looked at her watch, 7:30, which was just on the cusp of causing her to stay out too late on a work night. Bill answered the door wearing the same hoodie and shirt he wore to work, but his jeans were now replaced with black sweats.

“Hi!” She said when he answered the door. 

“Hey! Come on in,” Bill extended his arm letting her into his apartment. She slowly looked around at what Bill called his “sad dad pad”. It actually looked rather homey though. Drawings from his kids were taped onto a single wall, floor to ceiling. His living area, dining area and kitchen were all just one big room and he had a grey sectional couch in front of a massive flat screen television. The apartment was clean and tidy, but definitely a little sparse. 

Elle stood in front of the wall of artwork studying the pictures, “Bill, your place is fine… I don’t know why you call it your sad dad pad.”

Bill chuckled as he walked into the kitchen, “I just kind of hate it. I can’t wait to get into a house. But this summer divorce... next summer buy a house.” He shrugged, “Do you want anything to drink? I’ve got water, kombucha, and some beer that Alec left over here that I’m not allowed to drink…”

She plopped down on the couch, “I’ll just have some water—wait… why can’t you drink it?”

Bill was filling up her glass, “Oh… the diet mainly, but last time Alec was over I got drunk and googled myself.”

Her jaw dropped. She was perfectly aware of what people in certain circles thought of Bill and really hoped he hadn’t run into any of the fantasies people had about him. “Oh my god. What did you find?... Oh thanks.”

Bill put her glass down in front of her on the coffee table. “Well… the normal group of fans that say some really funny shit about me, those people I like. But then I found people on twitter that wanted to call me ‘daddy’ and threw my phone across the room. It was gross.” He shuddered.

“Oh my god!” She feigned shock. Of course she knew what was said about him on the internet, and found it totally embarrassing that he would actually read some of the gross stuff people posted about him. She was very glad she mostly  _ lurked _ on those sites. And she definitely had no intention of ever calling him…  _ daddy _ .

Bill grabbed the DVD and was busy setting up to watch this movie while they chit chatted, “Did you want a blanket? Or some popcorn?”

“Yes and yes.. Can I help with anything? Like I can make popcorn or something?” She had started to stand but Bill turned around quickly. 

“Nope, I got it.” He said. He had barely stopped moving since she walked in the door. He walked over to a basket and grabbed two blankets and tossed one at her. He walked back into the kitchen to start the microwave, “so what did you do after work?”

Elle got up and stood in the kitchen with him. He was going to have to be around her eventually. “Oh, yoga. Sorry if I smell by the way… and then ate a burrito on my way over.”

Bill sighed, “I miss burritos.”

“It was delicious! Guacamole, white rice, chicken, sour cream, lime juice, cheese…” Elle was stepping closer and closer to him as she described her burrito in graphic detail.

Bill turned around and flipped her off, “Fuck you Elle.” He smiled wide. She returned his smile and started giggling.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’m awful.” She leaned against the counter next to him. 

He moved away from her, “No you’re not. But you’re right, you do kinda smell.” He turned around and popped open the microwave. 

Elle put her hand on her hip as she watched him pour the popcorn into a bowl. “Asshole…” she muttered under her breath just loud enough for him to hear. She smiled up at him. 

“Come on, let’s sit down on the couch…” Bill took a seat in the corner of the sectional where he could lay down and stretch his legs, and Elle was on the opposite side with her legs curled up under the blanket. He set the bowl between them and then walked around the room turning the lights down. Then Bill unfolded a “Frozen” blanket over his body which made Elle giggle, Bill shrugged.

“So Hader, what is so important about this film that you just HAD to watch it with me?” 

Bill sat up and started talking. He talked about how Barry and this film share a similar story, where an assassin is ordered to kill a soldier he fought alongside. Ultimately the assassin is questioning his purpose and whether this mission is even worth it. She could definitely see the parallels between Barry based on the description alone.

“I’ll probably pause it a few times to tell you what to pay attention to if that’s okay?” He asked.

“Hader, that’s going to be so annoying--”

“What’s annoying is you calling me Hader…” he raised an eyebrow and smirked at her.

Elle was taken back by that, “Wait… really?”

Bill started giggling, “God, I don’t care, you really are very easy to pick on sometimes.”

“Jerk” she muttered under her breath and then threw a piece of popcorn at him.

“Oh.. don’t you make a mess of my apartment Forrester. I will ruin you.”

“Fine” she said, pouting. She took a deep breath trying to push away the thought of Bill ruining her. She shoved this feeling, along with many other feelings she had for Bill, deep down inside of her. “Just start the movie.”

As she watched the movie, it was impossible for her to not think about this situation in which she had put herself. She kept stealing glances at Bill’s long body stretched out just a few feet away from her. His dark messy curls stuck out in every direction on top of his head.

One major difference she noticed between “real Bill” and “on-camera Bill” was that he wore his glasses most of the time. By now she was full on staring at him and didn’t realize it… something about him looked different.

Bill turned to look at her, “Why are you staring at me?” He leaned forward and hit pause on the remote.

She realized what it was, “Did you get new glasses?”

He adjusted his glasses on his face, “Oh, yeah,” he said blushing. “When I was filming It 2, Richie wears big thick-rimmed glasses, ya know. I actually really liked the way they looked so I got a similar pair. Do they look okay?”

Elle smiled, “Yeah, they look really good. I like them.” She wanted to say that they made him look handsome. That they accentuated his cute nose and strong-jawline. And that they made his beautiful blue eyes sparkle. But again, she stuffed all of those feelings into a special place in her brain so she wouldn’t think about them.

“Thanks, umm… I’ve always really liked your glasses. Kind of the bigger frames, ya know. And I like the color on yours, brings out the color of your eyes.” Bill looked at his hands as he said this, and realized how impossible it was for him to hide that he was blushing.

“Oh thanks…” Elle wanted to smack herself in the head as soon as the words came out of her mouth, but instead looked down as her cheeks flushed with heat. She had no idea how to respond to what he just said. She wanted to tease him, ask him if he was flirting with her, but it scared the shit out of her. 

Most of the time, she was able to hide her feelings not just from Bill and everyone else, but most importantly from herself. If she refused to acknowledge that she was… that she had… that there was this… _ dammit! _ If she refused to acknowledge that something was happening, then maybe it wasn’t actually happening. She wasn’t sitting in her celebrity crush’s apartment watching a movie on his couch. They weren’t constantly flirting with one another and disguising it as friendly teasing and silliness. No, that is not what this was. This was a work meeting, and her boss just complimented her glasses. That’s it. At least, that is what she repeated over and over to herself.

Elle needed to clear her head, “Can I use your bathroom?” she said breaking this incredibly awkward silence between the two of them.

“Oh yeah… um use the one in my bedroom, it's probably cleaner than the one in the hallway. My room is the one without the pink bed.” 

He watched her walk down the hallway into his bedroom before he shoved his face in a pillow in frustration. As soon as the words came out of his mouth, he regretted it. “Why did you say the thing about her eyes, idiot?” he thought. Bill was struggling with what to do, what to say, and how to feel right now. He kept thinking how dumb it was to have her come over and how he didn’t realize what a difficult time he was going to have hiding how he felt. They had over an hour left in the movie. Bill talked himself up. He could do this, just one more hour and then she would go home and he wouldn’t be tempted to do or say anything dumb.

As Elle walked into his bedroom, a weird wave of intimacy washed over her. It felt strange being in the room where Bill slept, watched movies, or, something she didn’t want to think about, had sex. Other than the brief conversation they shared the night he stayed at her place for dinner, she didn’t really know if Bill was dating anyone. He didn’t talk about dating anyone or share that he was in a relationship, but it honestly wasn’t any of her fucking business. 

In some ways, as was the case with the rest of his apartment, it looked like Bill saw a photo in a West Elm catalog and said, “That.” The walls were white and mostly bare with the exception of a round gold mirror hung above his offwhite linen tufted headboard. The bed was minimally set with white pillows, white sheets, a white duvet and a knitted offwhite blanket. A bench sat at the end of his bed that captured the odds and ends from his day: this morning’s gym clothes, a towel, and his discarded jeans. Two matching nightstands with matching mid century-esque lamps stood on each side of his bed. A long dresser with a television was across from the bed. 

His bathroom was all white subway tile with grey bath mats on the floor. Along the vanity, he had lined up skin care products, hair styling products, vitamins, and medications. She was shocked to find the toilet seat was down. Behind big glass doors was a spacious standing shower.

A pocket door in the bathroom led into a walk-in closet that Elle could tell was mostly empty. She saw only a handful of suits, some jackets, plaid button up shirts, and then bare shelves and racks. “What a waste” she thought to herself. She used the bathroom and then made her way back out into the living room

Elle came back in and plopped down on the couch, “All right, Had-- umm Buddy, let’s get back to the movie.”

Bill laughed, “I was just joking!” She smiled at him.

As she covered herself back up with the blanket, Elle stretched her legs out along the couch, her blanket covered feet were inches from Bill’s arm, “Is this okay? I am trying not to touch you with my feet.”

Bill nodded before hitting play again. As he set the remote back down, he pushed away thoughts of touching her. Right now, he was resisting the urge to grab her feet and start tickling her because that would be incredibly inappropriate, hilarious and fun and could definitely turn into something more, but very inappropriate. He let out a sigh, before sinking down and resting his head on the couch cushion. 

Another half hour went by and Elle was starting to feel very sleepy, as they had started the movie later than she expected. She glanced down at her watch at the time. It was edging close to 10:00. She thought to herself, that she would just close her eyes for a little bit.

Unknown to Elle, Bill had fallen completely asleep and was off in a dream of his own. As he drifted off he imagined what would have happened if he’d started tickling her feet, watching her laugh and squirm away from him. 

This scene carried into his subconscious as he dreamt of playfully wrestling and fighting with her until she pinned him down to the couch by his shoulders. As she looked down at him, he carefully slipped his hands under her shirt, feeling the heat from her soft skin. In a flash, they were passionately kissing one another, her legs straddling his hips. His hands were now firmly gripping her ass as she writhed on top of him, grinding her body against his. 

Another flash, he maneuvered his way on top of her and pried her tight yoga pants off of her body. She was begging and pleading for him to keep going as he removed his shirt. He started with a trail of hot kisses and nibbles along her inner thighs. He dreamt of tasting her as his hands held her hips in place and he listened to her quietly moan his name as he massaged her clit with his tongue.

His brain fast forwarded and they were now both naked. Him sitting on the couch as she straddled him and stroked his cock with her hands. He nimbly squeezed her breasts and hungrily kissed her neck as she slowly lifted up onto her knees. She placed the head of his penis at her entrance and she started to slowly lower herself down on to him…

And that’s when Bill woke up with a start. His skin was sweaty and clammy as he tried to catch his breath. The room was completely dark and he had momentarily forgotten where he was.

Recognition slowly came back to him as he stared up at the dark ceiling. He had fallen asleep on the couch, and “oh god” he thought. The movie must have ended and the TV automatically shut off. He looked towards the corner of the couch where Elle had been sitting. He could barely see a lump of blanket where she was. She had fallen asleep too. Bill started to call her name before he realized the conundrum he was in.

Even though it was dark in his living room, the faint moonlight danced across the room. And underneath the blanket in his sweatpants, he had a raging boner to deal with. “ _Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!_ ” he whispered under his breath. As he saw it he had two options. One, go take care of it and then come back to wake her up. Two, wake her up, hide it, and then go take care of it. 

Option two had its risks. He looked at his phone and saw it was close to 2 AM. He wasn’t going to let her drive home, she would just need to stay here. “Should I tell her to take my bed or is that weird?” Bill thought. He realized that would be weird. Treating all things equal, if Alec had passed out on his couch he would tell him to sleep on the couch. He was about to sneak away for option one when she stirred.

“Bill?” she said sleepily. 

“Hey" he balled up the blanket on top of him. "We fell asleep.” He said quietly.

“Oh no… what time is it?”

Bill balled up the blanket in his lap and sat up. “Its like 2:00 am. I don’t feel right about you driving home... do you want to just stay here?”

Elle turned over to face where she thought he was sitting and sighed. “Umm… yeah. You’re right. I’ll just leave in the morning.”

Bill stood up, desperately hoping she didn’t notice him conspicuously hiding anything. “Do you need anything?”

Elle cocked her head to the side, “Umm...Do you have a spare pillow?”

“Of course, be right back.” Bill stood up and turned his back to her, dropping the blanket on the couch. 

He had a full on pants tent happening that he prayed she couldn’t see. He put both hands in the pocket of his hoodie and pulled it down low as he walked. He grabbed a pillow off of his bed. He paused, “Fuck!” He could hide this thing behind the pillow, but after that, he was screwed. Thinking fast, he quickly tucked the tip of his still rock hard dick into the waistband of his underwear, secured it again tying his sweatpants around his hips and then pulled his shirt and sweatshirt over. He walked carefully back into the living area trying to keep his erection securely stored away. He tossed the pillow at her.

“Thanks Bill.” She put the pillow beneath her head and snuggled back under the blanket.

“You need anything else?” He could feel his dick starting to slip and carefully shifted his weight as he stood.

“No, all good. Good night Bill.”

“Good night.” Bill spun on his heels to walk down the hallway.

“Why are walking so weird?” Elle asked.

Bill froze, “It’s just my knee. Gets achy at night,” he improvised.

“Oh, that blows, okay good night.”

“Night.” He could feel his cock twitch when she said the word blows. He walked quickly to his bathroom, shutting and locking the door. He pulled down his pants and closed his eyes tightly to recall where the dream had left off. With one hand holding on to his cock, he balled up a wad of toilet paper with his other hand. He could vividly remember the way her naked body looked as he slid into her. He imagined thrusting hard into her and with several quick strokes he came. 

As he cleaned himself up he looked at himself in the mirror. A wave of shame came over him. He not only had a crush on one of his writers, he invited her over to watch a movie, had a graphic sex dream about her, and then just jacked off to this fantasy while she was asleep on his couch. He knew as her boss, he could get himself in a lot of trouble if she wasn’t willing, but he honestly didn’t know how she felt. Sometimes, he was sure there was a spark of attraction there, but she always turned it around to just being friends. He didn’t want to be just friends… he wanted more.

He slipped his boxers back on and crawled into bed for a restless night of sleep.

Meanwhile back in the living room, Elle’s eyes popped open. It just dawned on her why Bill was behaving so strange just then. A small grin crossed her face as she realized that he was totally trying to hide that he woke up with an erection. She rolled over on her side and breathed in the scent of his pillow as she fell back asleep.

The morning after she and Bill had fallen asleep on the couch, Elle quietly woke up early and ducked out. She neatly folded up the blanket and left a note for Bill by the coffee maker. It read:

> B-
> 
> It’s cool if I’m late today, right?
> 
> <3,
> 
> L
> 
> PS - I still need to borrow that movie.

Bill woke up the next morning and walked into the living room. He heard her leave around 5:30 but he was still dozing in and out of sleep then. He was glad she left, because after what had happened, he wasn’t sure he could face her this morning. 

Friday’s ended up being pretty lax around the office, so it wasn’t especially obvious that both Elle and Bill looked a little worse for wear. Elle rolled in around 9:45 and dropped off coffee in Bill’s office. He was slumped over his desk reading when she walked in.

“Good morning Bill,” said Elle.

Bill looked up sleepily from his desk and smiled at her, “Good morning Elle, come in. Oh, and will you shut the door.”

“Of course.” Elle got nervous, “Did I do something wrong?”

Bill shook his head, he had a knot in his stomach because he felt like he had fucked up. “Oh, no no no no no. I just wanted to say that maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone about last night? Is that okay?”

Elle nodded but smirked at him, “Well, fuck. I mean I already talked to Vanity Fair this morning to give them the exclusive.”

“Oh really… and what was that?” Bill decided to play into this bit.

Elle put down her coffee on his desk. She bent her arms at the elbows and let her wrists go limp smoothing down one side of her hair, Bill eyed her suspiciously.

“I was going to tell them that LA’s hottest club is Bill Hader’s Sad-Dad-Pad… this place have everything--”

“NO!” Bill interrupted but she kept going.

“Bare white walls, expensive sectional couches, movie--I mean film DVD’s as wall art, grown men in Frozen blankets--”

“Stop it right now!” Bill giggled.

“MTV’s Dan Cortes, a giant bottle of olive oil!”, Elle covered her mouth and nose with both of her hands to hide her laughter. 

Bill was trying so hard not to smile at her, but it was obvious it wasn’t going to work. So instead, he too brought his hands to cover his nose and mouth, mimicking her. He let out a loud sigh before taking a deep breath in and saying, “Accurate!” in that low husky voice of Stefon.

Elle’s eyes went wide and she pointed at him grinning. She knew how much Bill hated being asked to do Stefon, so it really meant so much to her that he busted it out privately just for her.

As quickly as she had started the bit, she immediately dropped it and went right back into her serious face, “No but really, I’m not telling anyone. What am I going to say? Oh I fell asleep on Bill Hader’s couch like an idiot.”

Bill was still grinning. “I just don’t want it coming off that I’m some creepy predator.”

Elle laughed and then completely transformed her face into looking like a crying victim, “...and then he made me watch a Polish movie with subtitles!” She broke down giggling again.

Her mentioning the movie made him remember, “Oh, here. I brought this for you… so you can finish it.”

Elle smiled, “Thank you. I’ll finish it up this weekend.”

He paused, not really knowing what to say but also feeling vulnerable for reasons that Elle didn’t even know about. Bill sighed, “I’m sorry.”

Elle shook her head, “Bill, it's fine.” She thought for a second before finishing her thought. “It really is totally fine--”

“But I put you in a really uncomfortable situation, and I don’t really even know why I asked you over in the first place--”

She interrupted him, “Because we’re friends Bill. Co-workers don’t just drive each other home, or go get coffee together every day, or stay up texting each other when we both should be sleeping. We’re more than just colleagues Bill…”

Bill nodded and sighed again, “You’re right. We just need to hang out more or something.” He wanted to be so much more than friends, but at this point, he’d take what he could get from her.

Elle raised an eyebrow, “Whoa whoa whoa… I didn’t say that.” She grinned at him.

Bill shook his head. She always knew what to say to get him out of his and make light of a situation, “Get the fuck out Elle.”

She started to open up to the door, “Hey Hader, if I don’t see you, have a good weekend.”

He smiled back at her, “You too.”

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the teaser I have already posted with a few changes. But definitely re-read with context now!

Shouting and laughter carried down the hallway to the writer’s room. Elle balanced her coffee, notebook, and laptop in her arms as she shoved open the door. Looking around the room, the only open seat was next to Bill. She tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the seat. Smiling up at her, he nodded, “All yours.” 

“No, Amy, that is weird, that’s a weird crush,” said Duffy. The room erupted into the laughter again.

Placing her stuff carefully on the table and taking a seat. “What are yall talking about?”

Alec rolled his eyes, “Celebrity crushes, like who are our celebrity crushes…” Alec often looked like he was dealing with a high school classroom. He slouched into the seat and buried himself in his laptop, ignoring the cacophony going on around him.

“Nope. Unsubscribe.” Elle took a giant gulp of coffee, pulling her pen out of her messy bun. This is not a conversation in which she wanted to take part. 

“Oh come on Elle, we’re all sharing. Who is yours?” pleaded Amy.

“Yeah, Amy just said hers is Seth Rogen.” Duffy said stifling laughter. 

“Ew... yeah that’s weird Amy.” Elle took another big gulp of coffee. 

Amy grimaced, “Now you have to share.”

“No,” Elle looked over at Bill, “Did you say yours?” She figured she could get out of it if Bill wasn’t revealing his. 

“Phoebe Cates.” Bill shut his laptop and turned towards her. “Forever and always, Phoebe Cates in Gremlins.”

Elle nodded slowly, and looked around the room. There was no way she could lie about this because she’s a terrible liar. She wasn’t getting out of this and she was terrified.

Bill turned his chair towards her, “It's okay Elle, we won’t judge you,” he said teasingly. “What’s said in the writer’s room, stays in the writer’s room. Besides if you don’t say it, we’ll just try and guess.”

Folding her arms across her chest, “Fine, guess, because I’m not telling.” There was a slim chance they would guess right? But surely no one would actually say it even if they did figure it out, her crush was in the room.

“Okay so it's going to be someone that one of us knows because why else be so hush about it,” said Emily.

“Who did everyone else say?” asked Elle.

They each went around the room sharing their celebrity crushes, some were from when they were younger, but Amy and Emily both said people Bill knew. “By the way Emily, I’m telling Seth Meyers about your crush on him,” said Bill.

“Stays in the room Hader!” Emily said, slapping her palm on the table.

Everyone started studying Elle closely and rethinking everything they knew about her… taking everything into consideration. Guesses started flying into the air, Chris Hemsworth (bangable but not her crush), Brad Pitt, Donald Glover, etc. But then they started getting closer. Elle’s stomach cramped in anxiety.

“Okay I’m guessing a former SNL cast member, most likely someone that Bill worked with?” asked Duffy, “Why else would she not want to share?”

Elle gave him a brief nod, maybe they were going to guess. Fuck. what was she going to do? Her palms started sweating.

“Andy?” guessed Bill, Elle shook her head.

“Sudeikis?” guessed Amy.

“No, yall I really don’t want to say.” said Elle opening up her laptop so she could hide.

“Wait, is it Seth Meyers?” said Emily.

“No.” said Elle firmly.

They went through a pretty extensive list, Forte, Fred, someone even said Lorne.

“No, no, no…” she kept answering.

“God, who is it?” said Bill. He started tapping his pen on his stack of notes, and going through the list of people in his head. Elle looked at him and then back to her laptop.

“Oh…” said Amy, who then made eye contact with Emily. Elle’s eyes grew wide with fear and she mouthed “Don’t” at her.

“Ohhh no.” said Emily, mouthing silently to Elle, “I’m so sorry.”

Duffy saw the exchange between the two of them, “Oh… shit.” The room went absolutely silent.

Bill looked around the room. “Am I missing something?” Bill and Elle locked eyes. Realization was dawning on Bill’s face. Elle looked back at her laptop and slumped deeper down in the chair.

Alec, looking up from his laptop, finally started to realize what was happening and tried to turn the conversation around. “Come on let’s get to work…”

“The only person we haven’t said is…”, said Bill slowly, his face beginning to flush, “Me...”

Elle buried her face, quietly slinging together expletives into her hands. She quickly got up to leave the room, “I forgot something in my office.” Her face was beet red and she could feel hot tears brimming behind her eyelids. She couldn’t face him, she couldn’t face anyone. She quickly ran out of the room slamming the door shut behind her.

The whole table was aghast.

“Bill, you should go talk to her,” said Alec. The rest of the table nodded.

Bill bolted out the door, running down the hall. She slammed the door to her office before he could get to it. He tried to open the door but she had locked it, “Come on Elle, open up.” 

“Go away.” she shouted. She was sitting in her chair behind the desk, burying her face in her knees.

“Please? Open the door.” 

“No.” she said quietly through her sobs.

She heard the soft thud of his forehead laying against the door. His voice was quiet and pleading, “Please, just let me talk to you.”

Her heart sank. She slowly got up from her chair, walked over and opened the door. He stood there, hands braced on the doorway, head bowed. 

“Can I come in?” he said softly.

She nodded and sat back down in the chair. A hard lump moved into her throat as tears rolled down her cheeks. Her hands moved to her face to cover it. She felt like such a mess for letting this happen and even more from how she had just reacted.

Bill kneeled in front of her on the floor and gently pulled her hands from her face, holding them gently in his, “Hey, talk to me.” 

She stared down at their hands for a long time, trying to calm herself, taking deep ragged breaths. A million thoughts raced through her head. Yes, she was embarrassed that her secret that she had locked up so tight within herself was out in the open. Yes, she was absolutely humiliated that the one person who should have never found out about how she felt, finally knew. She was scared of getting fired, but mostly she was scared of losing everything she had with Bill. 

“Am I going to lose my job?” she blurted out before she started sobbing again.

“What?”

“Isn’t this like…” she sipped air in before continuing, “sexual harassment or something?”

Bill smiled and started quietly chuckling, “Elle, I don’t think that’s how that works.”

“Don’t laugh at me Bill!” She pleaded. She thought about how much she loved this job. This show and these people meant so much to her, which is why she kept this giant secret.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but you’re being really adorable right now… and that might be sexual harassment.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

Dammit, she was not supposed to be laughing or finding him charming right now. But a tiny smile crossed her face as she met his gaze. Tears started to form in her eyes again. “I’m so sorry.”

Bill looked nervous, “Is it okay if I give you a hug? I think you could really use one right now...”

The lump in her throat grew hard and tears spilled out as she nodded her head. Bill pulled her close to him, one hand carefully cradling the back of her head, the other pulling her tight to him. She buried her face into his neck, her tears soaking through his t-shirt. He kept reassuring her quietly that everything would be okay.

“You aren’t going to lose your job. I’ll talk everything out with Alec, that’ll be okay.” Bill said. They stayed there in this embrace until Elle’s breathing finally calmed.

Something felt different now. She pulled back from their embrace. Her and Bill had been close, but this felt new to her. She found herself fighting every urge in her to not look into his eyes and down at his lips. She shut her eyes tight to push the thoughts out of her mind and grabbed a tissue to blow her nose.

Bill’s cheeks were flushed. “Take the rest of the day off, okay?” he said. “And we can just talk about this later.” He stood up in front of her.

She nodded and looked up at him. Things between them had changed, and Elle needed some time to figure out how she felt. Yes, she had a crush on Bill Hader, comedian, director, Emmy-nominated actor, _Bill-mother-fucking-Hader_. But as she spent time with him and got to know him, that crush had started to change. She didn’t know what to do or how to act around him right now. She just needed space… She swallowed, “Bill, thank you for checking on me--”

“Are you going to be okay?” He interrupted

Elle nodded, “Yeah, but I think…”, the words struggled out of her mouth, “I think I kind of just need some space from...  _ us _ .”

The word  _ us _ hung between them. This acknowledgement of emotions and tension that had grown between them for months now finally spoken into existence. 

That  _ us _ brought their daily walks for coffee and evening text messages into context. She would be lying to herself if she hadn’t noticed how he always sought her out, saving her seats next to him, him plopping down in her office to talk on Monday mornings and his dumb excuses for being around her. A part of her wondered, did he want her to admit that she had a crush on him?

Bill looked down at his feet and put his hands in his front jean pockets. “Okay, yeah. That’s fine.”

“Just until Friday, when we have our meeting to go over the script for episode 5. Does that work?” she said, unable to look at him. 

Bill nodded, “That works, why don’t I go grab your stuff and bring it in to you?”

“Thanks, yeah I don’t know if I can face  _ them _ today.” She said wiping the smeared mascara off of her cheeks.

Bill walked back down the hallway. There was quiet quick talking behind the door of the writer’s room that quickly stopped as he opened the door. Picking up her stuff, “Elle’s going to head home for the rest of the day… I’ll be right back.”

He quickly left the room, walking back down to her office. She had already started gathering up her stuff. “Thanks Bill”, she said when he returned.

They stood there together in silence before Bill stepped back out into the hallway. He crossed his arms and looked down at the ground at his feet, “Let me know if you need anything okay?”

She nodded, “I’m going to try not to though… you know, reach out to you for a few days. Like still any normal work-related communication, but like--”

He looked up at her, “I understand… keepin’ it profesh.” As soon as it came out of his mouth, he winced at sounding like an old man.

Elle smiled, “Yeah… profesh.” She made her way out into the hallway, “I’ll see you later.”

Bill nodded and gave her a thumbs up, “Sounds good, see ya.”

=========

He watched Elle walk down the hallway before he turned on his heels and made his way back into the writer’s room.

It was silent as he sat down.

Alec spoke up first, “So where were we…”

Bill opened his laptop and let the sound of their voices grow fuzzy. He squinted his eyes and furrowed his brow before slamming his laptop shut. “Can we skip this today? Like reschedule, or something…”

“Sure,” said Alec, “Let’s reschedule for next week.”

Bill quickly got up, heading into his office, dismissing everyone in the room. They all exchanged silent glances and gathered up their things.

Bill sat behind his desk and put his head in his hands. On Alec’s way back to his office, he stood in Bill’s doorway and knocked. “Hey buddy”

Bill looked up, “Hey, come on in.”

Alec was stoic and emotionless, in his typical way. “Everything okay?”

Bill let out a long sigh, “We’re not going to fire her right?”

“Do you want to fire her?” Alec said quickly.

Bill straightened up, “Fuck no.”

“Then no, we aren’t going to fire her. Are you okay man?” Alec asked again.

“Yeah, yes… yeah, I’m okay.” Bill pursed his lips together.

Alec reached behind him and closed the door. Bill raised his eyebrows.

“Listen, I’m just going to say this so you know you have… options.” Alec was choosing his words very carefully. “If something did happen or more specifically you wanted  _ something _ to happen… we could figure it out.” Alex paused, “It's paperwork but… we could figure it out.”

Bill sighed. “Thanks buddy...” Alec stood up to leave but Bill stopped him, “Should I?” he said quietly.

Alec opened up the door to walk out, “I bet money on it.”

====

Elle threw her phone in her purse, determined not to look at the text messages buzzing through from the other writers. She was going to drive home, wash her face, pour a glass of wine at 11:00 am on a Tuesday, and sulk, then look at her phone.

She needed space from the reality that just happened. Her emotions felt messy. She got home and dropped her bag at the front door, shedding the weight of this day. She went into the bathroom and gave herself a hard look in the mirror. Her puffy red eyes looked tired and deep creases formed between her eyebrows. She splashed cold water on her face, walked to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine, and collapsed on the couch. Her instincts were to turn on an episode of Forensic Files but she stopped. This reminded her of Bill and she needed space from him. She quickly changed it to Naked and Afraid. This would definitely get her mind off of the fact that she just admitted to her boss that she had a crush on him.

Even the word crush felt gross to her… but no. She wasn’t going to start working out how she felt just yet, she was going to zone out in front of the TV.

Half a season and half a bottle of wine later, Elle was a little tipsy. She walked over to the door and grabbed her phone out of her purse. “So many texts messages,” she said out loud.

“Lizzy from Planned Parenthood here! We’re protesting the legislatures’...”

“50% off Frames at JoAnn’s!!! Click here for coupon”

“Emily and Amy - 21 messages”

Alec Berg: “Bill said you were worried about getting fired. You’re fine. Get some rest. See you tomorrow.”

She dismissed the messages from Planned Parenthood and Joanns, gave a thumbs up reaction to Alec and let out a sigh of relief, and then clicked on the conversation from Emily and Amy.

She had received half a dozen messages of apologies while she was still at the office. The rest were asking if she was okay or needed anything. 

Elle: I’m okay. Thanks for asking. It’s okay. How’s the room?”

Emily: Hader cancelled it.

Elle gave a !! reaction.

Elle: Fuck, that sucks, what happened?

Amy: Came back in, sat down, asked to reschedule it for next week. Then he and Alec went into his office and shut the door.

Emily: Did something happen?

Elle paused for a while before answering.

Elle: Nope, just talked. Listen, I need to get my mind off this situation for a bit before I can come back to the office tomorrow. So… I’m out.

Emily reacted with a thumbs up.

Amy reacted with a thumbs up.

Amy: Feel better lady.

Elle tossed her phone onto the other side of the couch before hugging her knees into her chest. She needed to be able to compartmentalize her feelings. But right now, she was going to finish the rest of this bottle of wine, order pizza, and cry herself to sleep.

=================

It was 11:00 pm and Bill had spent the last 30 minutes trying to read his book. He would start reading, then pick up his phone, go to text Elle, remember she asked him not to talk to her, slam his phone down on the bed, pick up his book and try to get back into the story. He felt like he had spent most of the night pissed off and agitated because he couldn’t talk to her. 

Meanwhile, Elle was sobering herself up before bed. She was looking through reddit at funny cat gifs and one made her snort with laughter. She copied the gif and went to paste it into a message to Bill and then stopped. She shouldn’t be doing this… 

He picked up his phone again, clicked on her name in his messages. Those three dots meaning someone on the other end was typing something popped up…Bill sat up in his bed and started to type, “I miss us...” but waited to hit send.

She had the gif in the message when she saw those three dots blinking. He was typing something to her. She abruptly sat up in bed quickly deleted the gif from the message but kept staring at the screen.

The dots disappeared from his screen. He closed his eyes tight and deleted the message. He got out of bed and put his phone on his dresser and plugged it in to charge. He looked up at himself in the mirror, “Stop it. Stop obsessing over this,” he said to himself. He walked back across the room, turned out his light, and crawled into bed.

The dots disappeared off of her screen. She exhaled, rolling over to place her phone on her nightstand and sunk into bed for a restless night of sleep.

Wednesday morning, Elle shut herself in her office to find a source for 1940s period costumes and put together a draft timeline of the shooting schedule for Episode 1. Once this was completed, she was going to dive into notes for Bill’s solo episode. Was she purposefully avoiding facing everyone? Yes. But was she was getting a lot of shit done? Also, yes.

She had heard Bill walk up and down the hallway several times this morning, most likely doing his usual pacing around while he thought. She heard footsteps and a knock at her door, “Hey it's Emily.”

“Come in”

Emily quickly walked in and shut the door behind her. “He’s being extra pace-y today.”

Elle laughed, “I can tell, even with my door shut.”

“How are you? You look…”

“Hungover? I’m hungover, but functioning.” Elle leaned back in her chair.

“What are you working on today?” Emily asked, clutching her cup of tea.

Elle opened up the document Bill had sent her on Monday, “I just finished scheduling for the first episode and now Bill wants my notes on his ‘episode’ that he wrote. Have you read it yet?”

Emily shook her head. “He never sent it to me, I don’t think anyone has seen it besides Alec.”

“Oh, maybe he just sent it to me.” Elle could feel her face begun to flush

“It's because he likes you...”, Emily teased

“Shut up Emily.”

“I’m serious… I think the only two people who don’t realize it are the both of you.” Emily said standing up.

“Emily, I just… I can’t think about that right now okay. Besides, I’m pretty sure I fucked everything up yesterday.”

She frowned at Elle, “I think that’s bullshit. Besides, we all made bets on when he’d ask you out… I said two weeks but I think Alec gave it one.”

Elle’s eyes grew wide, “GET OUT, get out now.”

Emily walked out of her office laughing and left the door propped open. 

Elle was even more embarrassed and just needed to get out of her office and walk off some steam. She stepped out the door and was almost run over by Bill. 

She gave him a brief “hi” and walked off before he could talk to her more. It was only Wednesday, how was she going to make it to Friday like this. She spent the rest of the week hiding out in her office, sending dry lifeless emails, and avoiding Bill as much as she could.

Before she knew it, it was Friday morning. She ended up staying late on Thursday reading through the story for Bill’s episode. It was amazing, but needed some clarity. She got in at 8 that morning to go over her notes and to prepare for seeing him at 10 am. She had left her door open, hoping he might stop in but he just walked right by her door.

At 9:45, she got an email from Bill, 

Subject: Running behind

> L,
> 
> Need to run a quick errand, may be few minutes late. I’ll meet you in my office, door should be open.
> 
> Bill

About three minutes until ten, she gathered up her stuff and headed into his office. She set herself up on the couch that faced his desk. She shot him a text: 

Elle: Waiting in your office, decided to reorganize EVERYTHING. Take your time. 

Bill reacted with Ha!

It was just a few minutes later when he showed up with two cups of coffee in his hand. Elle smiled up at him. “Hi.”

Bill handed her a cup, “Hi. Caramel latte with whip cream, your Friday treat yourself coffee?”

“That’s right… Thank you.”

Bill sat down next to her, “Let’s get right into this, I’ve got to leave for a lunch meeting at 11:30. What time are you leaving today? Asking to ask, not as your boss…”

Elle laughed, “I was going to head out around 4:00.”

“Okay, I’ll stop by before you head out.”

Elle grabbed her notes, “Bill,” he looked over at her, “This is amazing.”

Bill smiled so wide and looked down at his lap, “Thanks, now tell me what’s wrong.”

Elle jumped right in with the few questions and recommendations that she had, especially the note about what if Fuches superglued his hands to the steering wheel. They both started laughing together and things felt back to normal.

As they started wrapping up, that awkwardness started to creep between them again. Elle gathered her things and stood up to go back to her office, “All right Bill, I will see you before I leave for the day right?”

“Yeah…” Bill looked down at the ground, he felt embarrassed by what he was about to say. “Can I say something and it not sound weird or creepy?”

Elle scrunched her face up at him, “I guess…”

Bill laughed, “Just wanted to say… I missed  _ us _ .” His eyes met hers. He looked so genuine and earnest.

This took Elle completely by surprise but it didn’t make her nervous, sad, or embarrassed. “Me too.” She said before she walked back down the hall to her office, grinning from ear to ear.

=========

Elle looked at her watch, it was 3:30 and Bill hadn’t stopped by yet. She had left her door open for the rest of the day after their meeting. The offices were quiet with people wrapping things up or heading out early. 

Alec knocked on her door frame to say hello. Elle looked up, “Hey!”

“Great notes on episode five by the way. The superglue thing is genius.” he said.

“Oh thanks! Yeah, it just didn’t make sense why he wouldn’t just pull her off or something… Oh I also had another idea but Bill won’t like it…”

Alec leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms across his chest, “Hit me with it.”

“So you know how Barry is wearing a ski mask during the fight scene, but he’s getting the shit kicked out of him right?” Alec nodded and Elle continued, “What if for the rest of the episode, Barry’s face is covered in blood, but like just a dark red goatee that goes from under his nose all the way down his neck to the top of his shirt?”

Alec looked up in thought and grinned, “Yeah, Bill’s going to hate it for himself, but for the show… it's hilarious.”

“Okay so when I pitch it to him, you’ll have my back on it.”

“Definitely.” Alec nodded, “And he’ll listen to me.”

“Exactly…”

Alec shifted his weight, “Umm… got any big plans this weekend?” 

Elle’s eyes narrowed, “No… why do you ask?”

“Oh no reason… oh look, there’s Bill.. gotta run! See ya later!” Alec quickly took off.

Alec was being sneaky and she knew exactly why he had stopped by. She heard him and Bill talk briefly outside her door before Bill came in. 

“Hi”, Bill slinked into her office and sat down in the chair across from her.

“What’s up?” Elle looked at him suspiciously. He looked tense and nervous, which was making her feel tense and nervous.

“Well-- um--” Bill was stumbling over his words.

“Are you okay?”, Elle asked.

Bill took a deep breath in and looked up at her, “You got any plans for tonight?”

Elle’s breath caught in her chest and she swore her heart was about to fall out of her butt. “I was just going to make myself dinner… why?”

Bill took another deep breath, “I wanted to talk to you about what happened, earlier this week and I thought we could talk over dinner tonight?” Bill paused, “So… do you want to grab dinner with me tonight?”

Yes, her heart was definitely about to fall out of her butt. Her stomach filled with butterflies and she was stunned silent before she realized she should breathe and answer his question.

“Uhh… Sure. What time?”

Bill’s chest visibly relaxed, “6:00 work, we can go get tacos?”

Elle was shocked, but like maybe this was just a friend thing… yeah, friend-thing she told herself but didn’t believe it at all.

“Yeah, sounds great, I love tacos.” What was she saying? Words were just falling out of her mouth clumsily.

Bill smiled and stood up. “Cool, I’ll pick you up from your house at 6:00?”

Inside her brain Elle was just screaming  _ what the fuck is happening, is this real life? _ “Perfect, so I’m going to leave like… right now.”

Bill started walking out the door. “Oh yeah of course…” he paused and turned around, “Just to be clear, this is a date…”

Elle had started to grab her things, when he said this her notebook fell out of her hands and onto her desk. She looked up at him, “Yes. Got it.”

Bill laughed, “Okay, see you in a bit.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The date.

Elle was frantic. She shoved everything into her bag and raced out the door. She ran all the way to the parking lot to her car and hopped in. Her tires squealed as she pulled out of the space. As she sat in LA traffic, she started calculating the most efficient way she could get ready in enough time. Hair was clean but she would shower. Should she shave? No, this is a first date, just don’t jump his bones.  _ Oh god… _

“No, just focus on what you need to do.” She said out loud to herself. 

Once she got home, she quickly showered and took a long hard look at her closet. “Just pick something black…” she said to herself. She pulled out a black midi racerback tank dress and some strappy sandals with a slight heel. Her hair was fine… she had washed and curled it this morning and wore it down because she always felt prettier with her hair down. And she wanted to feel pretty when she had her meeting with Bill. 

She was finishing up her makeup when she heard her doorbell ring. 

“Just come in, it's unlocked!” she yelled.

Bill opened the door, “Sorry I’m early!” he shouted.

“You’re always early! I’m almost done.” she shouted back.

Bill walked in and sat down on the couch. Carl the cat came running down the hallway, meowing at him. 

“Hey there Carl!” Bill said softly. Carl bounded up onto the couch into Bill’s lap and started rubbing his head affectionately along Bill’s stubbly facial hair. Bill scratched Carl’s neck and kissed him on the top of the head.

Elle walked down the hallway putting in a pair of earrings and smiled at the two of them. “Do you need some time together?”

Bill looked up at Elle, a sweet smile spreading across his face, “You look beautiful.” he said.

Elle stopped. This was a side of him she had never seen before. He was normally telling her that she was adorable, cute, funny, or calling her buddy, but not beautiful. Her cheeks flushed, “Thanks, umm let me just get my bag.”

They said bye to Carl the cat and made their way out to Bill’s car. Elle’s nerves were pungent, she felt hot and overwhelmed about going on a date with Bill. She thought that again, “I’m going on a date with Bill.” Her hands felt cold and her knees felt actually weak. She had to remember how to walk again because he was consuming all of her thoughts right now. 

She reached for the handle of the car door but before she could open it Bill swooped in to open it for her. It startled her so much she yelled, “Shit!”

“So jumpy Elle…” he said grinning at her. 

She rolled her eyes playfully at him before calmly saying, “Thanks Bill.”

A long silence passed as they sat in Bill’s Toyota with neither one of them really knowing what to say or how to act. Elle spoke up first, “So, how was your week?”

Bill raised his eyebrows, “Oh yeah, I guess we haven’t talked…” Bill went in to telling stories about the girls and a suit fitting he had scheduled for next week. It was easy to get him talking, he always wanted to talk about books or movies. This type of conversation felt familiar between them. 

He paused, screwing his face up in thought. “Were you going to send me a text on Tuesday night?”

Elle smiled, “Oh yeah… it was a gif of a cat trying to jump on a table but totally missing it, it was really funny.” She thought back to that night and remembered waiting for a message from him. “Were you trying to send me a message? What was it?”

Bill laughed, “It wasn’t a cat gif… here we are.” Bill pulled up to the restaurant and parked. He stopped before getting out of the car, “Should I come open your door for you or are you going to freak out again?”

Elle scrunched up her face, this all felt so weird. “I don’t know, some of this just feels so strange.”

Bill sighed, “Let’s just get out of the car like our normal selves. We’ve been in a car together, let’s just do it like normal. Okay?” He smiled over at her and she nodded. They had a table on the outside patio in a secluded area. It was quieter than the rest of the restaurant.

They placed orders for margaritas and continued catching up on their week. Once their food was ordered Bill knew he needed to steer the conversation to a different direction.

“So I wanted to talk about what happened Tuesday,” he said, looking up at her for a reaction but Elle took a giant bite of her taco and nodded. Bill took a deep breath, “First, I feel like I need to apologize. It all started out harmless and silly, but then it became increasingly obvious that you were getting uncomfortable. I should have stopped it and I’m sorry for everything it made you feel.” Bill looked up at her, she was still chewing and motioned for him to keep talking.

“The second thing…” Bill paused, “Okay I’m afraid you are going to choke so I’m going to let you finish chewing.”

She took a big swallow and grabbed a sip of her drink. Elle reached across the table to put her hand on top of his. “Dammit, I’m hungry Hader… okay, keep going.”

He took her hand in his, rubbing his thumb gently across her fingers. “Okay, the second thing, I feel is a little obvious by now but… I like you. I like you a lot. And I don’t know exactly when I started feeling this way. And honestly, I didn’t really decide that I was going to tell you and ask you out. But then everything happened on Tuesday. And it was like everything became clearer to me. Hiding it from you the past few days has been difficult.” Bill paused and looked into her eyes. “I like being around you and I like the way you make me feel. You’re smart, and funny, and call me out on my shit. And I know acknowledging all of this feels strange, but… I want more than just friendship with you.”

Elle beamed at him with a big goofy uncontrollable smile that lit up her whole face, “I like you too Bill.” She grabbed another sip of her drink, the tequila starting to make her feel a little more relaxed.

Bill raised his eyebrows and looked at her suspiciously before he squeezed her hand, “That’s it. I pour out my heart and that’s it.”

Elle belly laughed loudly, tears forming in her eyes, “Oh… so it's my turn, you want me to go now?”

Bill smiled, “Yes, please tell me everything.” It was so hard not to picture Stefon anytime he said the word everything.

Elle took a deep breath in and pulled her hand away. She straightened up in her seat and shook both of her hands out, “Okay, I can do this. I can talk to you about this. Here, let’s hold hands again, I liked that. It’s nice…”

Bill was now belly laughing too. He reached back across the table and took her hand in his. “I promise I won’t judge you…”

“Okay, so…” she paused. She couldn’t believe she was about to talk about this with him. But she was feeling a little loose and she felt safe being able to tell him these things after he revealed how he felt. 

“I’ve had a crush on you since _Laser Cats_.” She blurted out.

Bill started laughing hard and slapping his knee, tears forming in his eyes. “That’s not what I expected to hear…”

“Let me finish!!” Her giggling was getting out of control. She took a few deep breaths. “Okay, so I’ve had a ‘celebrity crush’ on you for a long time. You made me laugh, you always caught my attention, you’ve played some of my favorite characters. And then the more I got to know about you through interviews and stuff, I started to respect the fuck out of you. I thought you were incredibly handsome, and… god… your jawline is, like… _so hot_.” Elle looked down, she couldn’t look at his face right now. 

“So I’ve felt this way about you for a long time… and Jesus, Bill, there have been dozens of times where our paths could have crossed... but when Liz called me about writing on Barry, God, I didn’t know what to do. I knew I was going to meet you and I knew I was going to be an absolute mess. Which I was, but I don’t think you noticed.” She looked up at Bill who shook his head no. “Okay cool, so before I started working with you I had to work really hard to stuff all of that like really deep down.”

Bill nodded, “I had no idea… keep going.” He continued to hold her hand in his, enjoying this hindsight to the past few months they had worked together.

“So then we started working together and it was great, I was fine. I couldn’t look at you sometimes but I could hide that. And to be honest, the crush started to fade because I got to know  _ you _ . You weren’t this loud, ‘always on’, person trying to make people laugh, I mean you were but you… weren’t.. You were quieter, and very anxious-- and then we started to become friends, which I didn’t expect to happen at all, but it did.

“And of course I care about you and of course I like you romantically but I wasn’t going to admit that to myself. And it didn’t really hit me until everything came out on Tuesday because,” Elle started to tear up, “I didn’t want to lose you.” She took a big sip of her drink as Bill squeezed her hand. “So… yes, I like YOU, like real you. The you that makes me feel confident and funny… and god you are so nice to look at sometimes.”

Bill looked at her and raised his eyebrows, “Is that it?”

Elle looked at their hands and then back at him, “Uh huh… that’s all, I think…”

They were both giggling messes confessing their feelings for one another. She was so glad that this table was away from everyone else.

They finished their meal sharing memories from the past few months, teasing each other about when it was so obvious they were flirting. Their laughter died down and they both got quiet. Bill leaned into the table, his voice quiet and low, “You wanna get out of here?”

Elle nodded. Bill signaled to the server for the check. It reminded her of Trainwreck and she started giggling, the tequila making her feel buzzed and happy.

“What are you laughing at?” Bill said.

“I just was reminded of that scene in Trainwreck…”

“Oh… Ya know, I thought you were going to say that’s when you had a crush on me.”

Elle smiled, “No, I mean you looked great, but I thought you also looked really good during the promo for Trainwreck, and the promo for Documentary Now! And Skeleton Twins… oh and in Paul...” Elle put her hand over her face, “I’m rambling.”

Bill smirked at her, “At least you didn’t say I looked hot when I shot a gun…”

Elle let out a loud laugh, “Oh no, yeah that’s not my thing. But you do look pretty adorable when you scowl.” Bill scowled at her just for fun. “Yep, that face!”

They left the restaurant and decided to walk around a bit, so they could each sober up before Bill had to drive her home. It felt good to just be able to talk about these things together and overtly flirt with one another. There wasn’t embarrassment or shame, it felt good. 

They got back into Bill’s car and he started driving her home. They were both strangely silent. The night had gone amazing, but they were both anticipating how it was going to end. Bill pulled into her driveway.

“Wait, stay there.” Bill said before getting out of the car, walking around, and opening her door. He held out his hand for her.

“Thanks,” she said smiling at him.

It was one thing to be able to share their feelings with one another, flirt openly, and be comfortable together. But, physical touch was different. They had held hands but as they got closer and closer to her door, thoughts of kissing one another became more of a reality.

They walked up to Elle’s door and stood silently in front of one another. Elle looked up at Bill, “Do you want to go inside, for like privacy not because… “ Elle raised her eyebrows.

“Oh yeah, sure.” Bill moved aside to let Elle open the door. They stepped into the small entryway.

Elle dropped her keys and bag onto the floor and looked up at Bill. She took a deep breath, “Why does this feel so weird?”

Bill sighed, “I know, right! It feels really strange to act on this.” He looked down at his hands and then back into her eyes, “ And I’m really nervous.”

Elle looked up into his eyes, “You’re right, I am too.”

Bill placed his hands on her waist, “Yeah… okay, should we do this? I want to kiss you but are we ready for this--”

“Bill, shut up” she interrupted. “I’m going to kiss you…”, Elle placed her hands on either side of his face. Bill stood frozen for a beat too long, “Okay but Bill you’re going to have to bend down because you’re really tall and--”

His lips stopped her mid sentence. At first, they were both stunned and unsure of what to do, moving their mouths against the other person’s. But, something unwound between them and they found a gentle rhythm with one another. Bill’s arms tightened around her waist, pulling her closer to his body. The thing that was missing that hadn’t quite clicked into place was this desire. This feeling neither one of them acted upon until now. It bubbled under the surface of their friendship, respect, and admiration for each other and now shot like electricity between them.

They kissed for who knows how long, because it felt good and right.

Bill’s rhythm slowed and his arms loosened around her. He cupped her face in his hands before pulling back. He stayed just like that, looking into her eyes. “I had a really great time tonight.”

Elle smiled up at him, “Me too... “

He hugged her body close to his and landed a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”

Elle pulled back and raised an eyebrow at him, “You better… or else Monday’s going to be really weird.”

Bill’s face went slack, like she had just reminded him he left the oven on. “Fuck… what are we going to do?”

“Probably just make out against the white board,” Elle teased.

“Noooo, not the whiteboard.” Bill paused and opened up the door. “Goodnight,” he leaned in for one more kiss and pulled her close to him.

“Goodnight Bill”, she said after their lips parted. She stayed at the door until he got into his car and then shut it. Bringing her fingers up to her lips, she let out an audible sigh as she thought one thing, “Holy shit… I just made out with Bill Hader.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was so much fun getting to FINALLY write this scene and I hope it comes across that way. Please leave kudos and comments!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill asks Elle on a double date with one of his dearest friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From here on out, things start getting a bit smuttier. Enjoy!

Bill did call that weekend and they decided it would be best to keep things a secret from their coworkers, at least for a little bit. However, Bill did make a point that he needed to tell Alec. Bill also asked Elle to please keep Saturday evening available. She agreed. 

Monday morning Elle was a little nervous about walking into work. Was she going to be able to keep it cool between her and Bill? Were they going to be able to keep their secret? She felt giddy… they had a secret. 

When she walked by his door, she didn’t know what to do. Normally, she would stop in and say hello. However, should she do that now? Was it making it too obvious that there was something going on between them? 

She decided to keep walking right on by his door, which she did immediately regretted and was about to turn back when she heard a “pppsssssttt” come out of his office.

She backtracked. “Hi!” she whispered.

“Hi… why are you whispering?” Bill smiled.

“I didn’t know what to do!” Elle shrugged and stood in the doorway.

“Come sit down, weirdo, but shut the door… or wait, don’t shut the door.” Bill clenched his teeth together, “Now I don’t know what to do…”

Elle shut the door and sat down, “We can’t act like this today.”

Bill sat forward in his chair and put his head in his hands, “I know.” Bill looked up at her, “It's good to see you.”

Elle smiled, “Same, how are you?”

Bill sighed, “Tired, but I’m good. Just back on kiddo schedule for a while. How are you?”

“I’m great.” she looked deep into his eyes. They both sat there looking at each other before Bill extended his hand across his desk toward hers. She reached forward and placed her hand in his. He took his thumb and stroked her hand gently. Both of them looked at their hands intertwined across his desk and then back up at one another.

“Okay this is it, we can’t do this here… yet.” Bill said quietly.

Butterflies filled Elle’s stomach again. This situation needed to be diffused somehow, so she diffused it the best way she knew how.... with humor. “Dude, of course not. What did you think I was going to do? Come in here and straddle you at your desk?”

Bill raised an eyebrow at her. “Aww! You’re not?”

Elle glared across at him and jerked her hand out of his. He started pouting.

“Oh no you don’t. Don’t pull that face on me Hader…” She stood up and walked towards the door and lowered her voice to a whisper, “Fine… maybe… but not today.” She winked at him and he winked back. She couldn’t believe she was talking to him like this. They had definitely been flirty before, but now everything they talked about felt like a possibility. Her entire body felt as if it was going to float right up to the ceiling, out of the building, and into the atmosphere.

She turned around to walk out the door but forgot one thing, “Hey, Saturday? Is that happening?”

“Yes, I’ll tell you about it later… Now go! Get out of my office.” he said.

The week went by and somehow, they managed not to maul one another in the hallway. Aside from several stolen glances in meetings and finding excuses to work together on things, they were able to disguise what was going on between them as work. 

Thursday morning Bill popped his head into Elle’s office, “Hey!”

“What up Hader?” Elle replied.

“You want to walk with me and get coffee?” Bill asked. She loved that even though this was something they always did together, he still came by and asked.

Elle grabbed her wallet and sprung out of her chair, “Of course, let’s go.”

They walked in silence together until they were out of earshot from their colleagues. Once they were safe, Bill started talking to her about his plans for Saturday.

“So, how would you feel about a double date?” he said quietly.

Elle eyed him suspiciously, “I could be down, but isn’t that risky? I thought you wanted to keep us a secret?”

Bill whispered, “Yes, but he’s a good friend and I really want you to meet him…”

Elle was running through the list of “friends” Bill could be talking about. Yes, great possibility that it wasn’t someone she knew, but also a great possibility that it was someone super famous and important. “Who’s the friend Bill?”

“Don’t freak out, okay?” He leaned down to whisper in her ear. His warm breath tickled her neck sending goosebumps down her arm. “Conan O’Brien”

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Elle shouted. Bill’s hands flew to cover her mouth and the back of her head. She struggled against him.

Bill looked around to see if anyone saw what had just happened, “You can’t do that!” His hands lowered.

“Conan-fucking-O’Brien? You want me to have dinner with Conan? Jesus Christ Bill… this is only our second date!” Elle whispered back to him.

A devilish smirk crossed his face, “Yep... “ He opened up the door to the coffee shop for her and leaned down to whisper to her again, “I’m just trying to impress the pants off of you.”

Elle’s face went slack, and her eyes grew wide as she looked up at him. He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise, clearly very pleased with himself at what he just said. 

Bill walked up to the counter, “Two black coffees.”

Elle could feel the soft drum of her quickening heartbeat in her chest, and could feel the slow hot rise of blood rushing to her cheeks. She stood there frozen.

“Elle-- Elle” Bill hip checked her hard and she lost her balance. But what he did worked, it pulled her out of her stunned space. “Hey, I was only joking… well kind of.”

“Stop it.” she said sternly. She covered her face in her hands, “I-- I just... “

Bill patted her gently on the shoulder, “Listen… I’m just joking around with you, let’s talk more on Saturday okay?”

Elle grabbed her coffee off the counter and looked back at him, “Okay.”

As they walked back to the office, Bill filled her in on what they were doing on Saturday. He was going to pick her up, and they were going to go over to Conan’s house for dinner with him and his wife, Liza. Bill had a baby-sitter until midnight. She felt bad that he was having to drive all the way out to Silverlake to pick her up and then back across town, but he insisted. 

On Saturday, she put on a bright blue romper that really brought out the color of her eyes and a pair of platform wedges. The mascara wand shook in her hand as she coated her lashes, exposing how nervous she was about tonight. Between the very risqué flirting and going to dinner with his friends, this felt like it was moving really fast.

Looking back, she knew they had crossed some sort of line past friendship weeks ago. Maybe it was the way he gently took care of her during her migraine or when she went over to his apartment and they ended up watching a movie together. She was startled out of her thoughts by the doorbell ringing. She took a deep breath, and looked herself over in the mirror with satisfaction.

Elle pulled open the door to see Bill standing there, tall dark and goofy. He was wearing a pair of black jeans and a dark grey button up shirt. His hair was messy and he was wearing his dark, thick rimmed glasses. 

“Hi” his voice was sweet, quiet, and low. 

She smiled, “Hi, Come in!”

Bill couldn’t take his eyes off of her. “You look incredible.” He bent down and gently wrapped his arms around her pulling her body close to his. He kissed her gently on the lips. 

She smiled against his mouth. “Thank you. So do you.”

As they left, he opened the door for her any chance he could. Bill parked the car and they got out.

Bill and Elle walked up to the front door. Elle clenched her hands into fists trying to calm her anxiety, “I’m pretty nervous Bill…”

“You should be.” Bill said with a smirk. 

Elle rolled her eyes, “Fuck you Hader.”

Bill rang the doorbell and they stood there waiting. Elle’s heart thumped inside of her chest so hard she was sure Bill could feel it moving the air. She reached out and grabbed Bill’s hand.

“Ouch, stop sqee--”

Before he could finish, Conan answered the door. “Bill!! Hey buddy!” He pulled Bill in for a hug and Bill pried his hand from Elle’s deathgrip.

“Hey man! Good to see you!” Bill said.

“And this must be Elle!” Conan stuck his hand out to shake hers.

She stood there completely frozen. She was meeting one of the most influential comedians of her time. She was sure her parents still had VHS tapes in the basement where she had recorded his show. And here she was, standing outside her door, with Bill fucking Hader who she was DATING or something and she was here having dinner. The weight of everything collapsed on to her and she couldn’t move.

“I--... I-- um” dribbled out of her mouth.

Bill patted her on the back, “She’s real nervous man…”

Elle snapped. She suddenly turned to Bill, “Seriously, shut the fuck up…” Her hands flew to her mouth in embarrassment.

Bill looked at her with a raised eyebrow and didn’t say anything.

Conan finally broke the silence, “Bill Hader, nicest guy in Hollywood, also an insufferable bastard.”

At that, Elle lost it and broke out into laughter. She decided to push through her nerves and reached her hand out to shake Conan’s, “Hi, it's an honor to meet you.”

“Well you say that now, wait until after dinner… come on in.”

He led them inside his beautiful house and introduced Elle to his wife, Liza. Bill, Conan and Liza spent some time catching up, meanwhile Elle just stood there and watched in silence. Bill and Conan were like two best friends at the lunch table… constantly trying to make the other one laugh harder. Liza showed them to the table, Conan poured everyone glasses of wine, and they all sat down.

“So Elle,” said Conan, “Bill says you write with him on Barry?”

Elle nodded, “Yes, I do! It’s really great, I’m learning so much from him and Alec and everyone else.” They talked briefly about the show before Liza asked the question of the night...

“So… How long has ‘this’ been going on?” Liza asked cheerily, wagging her finger between the both of them.

Conan jumped in, “Why are saying ‘this’ like that? What is ‘this’?”

Elle was nervous knowing that maybe his friends were a little protective of him. They had every right to be. So she shrugged, “Honestly, I don’t know what we are… Bill?” She eyed him.

Bill shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “Well, we haven’t really talked about it yet. This is only our second date…” He shifted his eyes over to Elle.

Conan looked like he was about to do a spit take, “WHAT?! Why would you bring someone here on a second date?”

“You invited me over for dinner and said bring someone if I wanted to… so I brought someone,” said Bill defensively.

“Jesus Christ Bill! Are you trying to scare her away?” shouted Conan.

Bill scratched his jaw, “No I just…”, Bill looked over at Elle, “Save me… please?”

Elle laughed, “Bill know I really look up to you, so I think he was trying to impress me. And honestly, I’m okay with not knowing ‘what’ we are… yet.”

“Right, like we became pretty quick friends after she was hired, and we just haven’t had the opportunity to define what we are yet… it's more just like trying not to let anyone else at work find out.” Bill explained.

Conan brought his palm to his forehead, “Why are you having this conversation in front of us?”

Elle quickly caught on to the ‘bit’ that was happening and just burst with laughter. Her and Bill both started giggling together.

Conan sighed, “Okay… okay… second fucking date, Bill, I love you, but you’re a lunatic.” He shook his head, “Okay so Elle, how did you end up in Los Angeles?”

Elle was happy to move on from the conversation. She told the story of how she ended up in LA, and talked about her time doing improv, sketch comedy, and theater until she figured out what she really wanted to do, she took a few screenwriting classes and ended up writing for TV. Because she got asked this all the time, she had practically turned it into a tight five minute stand-up set. She beamed with joy anytime she made Bill or Conan laugh, even though Bill was often a light touch.

“Ya know, I’ve interviewed with Mike Sweeney twice to write for you…” she confessed.

“Fuck that guy…” said Conan before breaking out into a chuckle.

Once they finished eating they moved out to the back patio. Bill and Conan talked about when Bill could come on his podcast and Elle and Liza were deep into a conversation about plays and theater. Conan saw the two women talking animatedly and yelled, “What are you both doing? Talking without us?”

Liza gave him a side-eye, “You could just say you want attention now honey.”

It was starting to get late. Elle was on her third glass of wine and she was pretty sure that Bill had poured his half glass into hers when she wasn’t looking. They made their way back through the house and to the door to say their goodbye’s. 

Conan went in for the hug with Elle, “It was really wonderful to meet you, and I’ll tell Sweeney he’s an idiot for you.”

Elle nodded, “I appreciate that a lot, thanks. It was wonderful to meet you too.”

Bill opened up the car door for her before going around to the other side and getting in. Bill got out his phone to check in with the baby-sitter and let her know that he would like her to stay a little bit later. He was quiet on the ride home before saying, “I guess we do kind of need to talk about some things.”

“Yeah, although I think hashing it out at the dinner table was working really well.” Elle reached over and squeezed his hand.

Once they got back to her house, Elle made a pot of tea and asked Bill if he wanted to sit out on her back patio. It was one of her favorite spots in her home. They went out back and she turned on the lantern lights and lit some candles. 

“Are you trying to seduce me?” Bill said as he sat down and set his tea on the table in front of him.

Elle smiled at him, “I am just setting the mood for an intimate conversation…”

Bill raised an eyebrow, “Oh… intimate huh?”

Elle shook her head, sat down next to him and leaned into his side. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close. His hand gently grabbed her chin to turn her face up toward his and he lowered down to kiss her. His lips were soft as they pressed against hers. His hand slowly fell down to her waist and came to rest on her hip. He pulled away and said quietly, “Okay, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Elle nodded, “Yeah, we definitely need to talk.” This time it was her that went in towards him. She pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, a little more passionately than before. She opened up her mouth slightly and let her tongue gently find its way into his mouth. He opened up and kissed her back. His hand had moved down to her thigh, squeezing the exposed skin where her romper had hiked up a little. His hand was slowly moving further and further up underneath before she pulled away, taking a deep breath.

Bill squinted his eyes realizing what had just happened, “Shit… sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Elle shook her head and leaned away from him, “It's okay, really it's okay.” Elle took a big sip of her tea and Bill followed her lead. “Okay, so Bill Hader, what is ‘this’?” she said using air quotes.

Bill nodded, “So… we’re dating. That’s for sure… but are you my girlfriend?”

Elle’s heart fluttered, “Definitely dating, but yeah… do people over 35 call each other boyfriend/girlfriend?”

Bill shook his head, “I have no idea.” He furrowed his brows in thought, “Does it feel comfortable saying that yet? Like would it have been weird if I introduced you tonight as my girlfriend?”

Elle looked up thoughtfully, “A little weird.” Elle hadn’t been someone’s girlfriend in 5 years, so using the term felt weird to her. Did she want to be Bill’s girlfriend? God yes, but did it feel right yet? Not quite. It still felt like they were just carrying around a big secret.

“So, until it feels comfortable, let’s just say we are dating. And then when it feels right, I’ll call you my girlfriend and vice versa?”

Elle nodded. “Sounds good.”

He reached his arm back around her waist, “Can we go back to making it out now?” Bill said with a smirk.

Elle put up her hands, “Um not quite.” She shut her eyes tight and looked down at her lap before blurting out, “Let’s just go ahead and talk about sex?”

“Oh whoa…. Um okay… yeah. What about it?” Bill rubbed the small of her back.

Elle was nervous to bring this up because she wasn’t sure how he felt. But she knew that if she didn’t just talk about this, she might do something she would later regret. “So I haven’t had sex in a while…”

Bill nodded and tried to hide the grin on his face, “You are so cute when you are nervous.” He kissed her lightly on the nose, “and?”

“And…” Elle took a deep breath in, “So I haven’t had sex in a while because for me its a really big deal. I haven’t been with many guys and I just don’t want to rush into anything with you. The last time I was with someone it was just really spur of the moment, and I really regretted it and I don’t want that to happen with you. I’m not saying let’s wait for a long time but I’d like to at least be intentional about it, like make arrangements ya know. I don’t want to just get caught up in the passion of it all and I’m not wearing cute underwear or something.”

Bill smiled at her, “I completely understand… and yeah, that’s fine.”

Elle exhaled, “I just got really nervous because we’ve been joking around a lot about getting in each other's pants and--”

“But that’s just flirting,” Bill interrupted. He grabbed her hand in his, “I care about you a lot and so when it comes to sex, I want it to be special and I want you to feel prepared for it.”

“Thanks Bill”, she said squeezing his hand in hers.

“But also remember, I’m a divorced father who shares a three bedroom apartment with my daughters every two weeks… I’m horny sometimes and I get carried away with you, and my feelings won’t be hurt if you stop me.” he said.

Elle nodded and smiled at him but her brow then furrowed with concern, “Wait, what time do you need to get back?”

“Fuck!” Bill quickly fished his phone out of his pocket. He sighed with relief, “If I leave here in 20 minutes, I should be fine.”

Elle had an idea, “Okay so set an alarm for 15 minutes, and we can pick up  _ kind of _ where we left off?”

He smiled, “Great idea!”

After Bill set the timer on his phone, he quickly dove back into kissing her but Elle pulled away, “Wait--what about work?”

Bill placed his finger on her lips, “We’ll talk about that at work. This isn’t work time, this is make out time okay?”

Elle’s lips curved into a smile against his finger.

Bill carefully pulled her onto his lap so that her legs were straddling him. It was a way more intimate position than they had been in previously, but Elle was able to let her guard down a little knowing that sex wasn’t on the table tonight. Plus, she would be lying if she hadn’t fantasized about being in this exact position on him for years.

As he wrapped his arms around her, his hands balled the fabric of her outfit into his fists, pulling her body close to his. She rested her arms around his neck as she guided her tongue into this mouth. A low quiet moan rumbled in his throat as she did. He was squeezing her so tight against his body, she felt as if she was running out of oxygen. He started to kiss and nibble down her neck, as she quietly whimpered. If they only had 15 minutes, it was going to be a hot 15 minutes.

His thighs felt strong underneath her own. One hand gripped her hard around the waist and the other one slowly slid past her hips and grabbed firmly onto her ass. Elle squealed as he dug his fingers into her flesh. She rocked her hips forward against him and he moaned against her collarbone. She wasn’t all surprised to find that Bill had a growing erection. 

He whispered quietly in her ear, “God, I haven’t dry humped in years…”

She rocked her hips forward, harder this time with both of his hands on her ass guiding her slow rhythm. Her hands pulled his face back up to meet her and she kissed him fiercely. As she slid forward again, she took his bottom lip in her teeth and gently sucked. 

Wrapping his arms around her, he gripped her hard on the hips, his fingers surely leaving bruises. “Are you sure you want to wait?” he said with a smile on his face.

“Mmmmm hmmm…” she said between kisses, “Much.... sexier… panties…”

He moaned and started to bite softly on her neck and shoulders, a hand slowly massaging her breast. He was running his tongue along her collar bone when the alarm on his phone went off. He rested his forehead against her breasts (which was his mouth’s next destination) and sighed. “Shit…” he said quietly.

“Holy fuckin’ shit…” she replied breathlessly.

They sat there catching their breath together. They knew they had chemistry, but they had both seen how easy it was to get carried away with one another. 

Bill looked up into her eyes and gave her one more kiss, “This was… fun, “ he said and wiggled his eyebrows up and down on the word fun.

Elle tilted her head back and laughed, “Oh my god, yeah… that was a lot of fun.” Elle took his hands and precariously stepped off of his lap. She smoothed the wrinkles in her romper and stood before him.

He smiled at her.

“What is it?” she looked down at her wrinkled outfit and patted her very flushed cheeks.

He stood up in front of her, “You just look really sexy right now… all hot and bothered, ya know.”

She wasn’t sure if it was physically possible to blush even more than she was right now, but it sure felt like it was. She looked up at him, “Bill, we need to get you home.”

His hands gently cupped her face and he kissed her once more. “I know, let’s go back inside so I can say bye to Carl.”

She looked at him confused, it would have been much easier for him to leave through the gate, “Why?”

Bill pointed at the screen door, “He’s been sitting there staring at us all night.”

Elle chuckled, “Oh poor Carl, got such a show tonight.” She opened the door and led Bill inside.

He bent down and scooped up her cat and carried him into the front room, scratching his ears. This made Elle smile, Carl was really not this way with everyone, so she felt that since he approved of Bill, that this was very special.

Bill sat Carl down gently on the couch before he turned around to say bye to Elle, “Okay, one more kiss, then I’m out.”

Elle leaned forward and kissed him once more before saying, “Goodnight Bill.”

“Good night Elle, I’ll text you when I get home.” He opened up the door and started off towards his car in the driveway.

“All right, sounds good, Byee!” she waved as he waved back.

Elle went back inside to get ready for bed. She put on her pajamas and splashed her face with cold water, and when that wasn’t enough placed an ice pack on her chest. Her head was still spinning from what just happened in her backyard. She looked at the wrinkled romper laying on her bed and flashes of Bill’s hands on her came into her mind.

She was sitting in her bed reading Harry Potter because she needed something like that to distract herself. Then she heard her phone vibrate and she had a text from Bill.

Bill: Made it home. I had a really great evening.

Elle looked at her phone and thought if she should send this or not, but decided she would.

Elle: Not going to lie, I’ve fantasized about that for like years.

Bill reacted with “!!”

Bill: Well, I’m about to lock my bathroom door and fantasize about it right now.

Elle sent a series of shocked and blushing emojis.

Bill replied with an eggplant emoji, and three water squirts.

Elle reacted with Haha!

Elle: Sounds messy

Bill: Oh, it will be. 

Elle bit her bottom lip in thought before she sent the next text. What she was about to ask for was risky, and if Bill wasn’t game for it… well it might be really embarrassing.

Elle: Can I see it?

Bill: What do you mean by “it”? Do you want a picture of Bill Skarsgaard as Pennywise? I’m pretty sure you could just google that… also weird kink.

Elle: No… not that. Bill, I think you know what I’m asking for…

Bill: Are you asking for a photograph of my erect penis? ;)

She imagined him saying this in that old timey voice he liked to use and it made her laugh out loud.

Elle: Yes sir.

Bill: Oooh, I like it when you call me sir. 

Elle: Please… sir? :D

Bill: Okay, but I’m going to send it with invisible ink so it goes away.

Elle: That’s fine, plus that means I have to rub it for it to show up on my phone.

Bill: God… you’re dirty. I like it.

She saw the dots flashing for a while before a picture came through. She rubbed her finger furiously over the photo and yelped out loud. He had sent her a dick pick and he was much bigger than she had realized. 

Elle: Very impressive.

Bill: Thank you. Now your turn…

Elle: You want to see MY dick?

Bill: No…

There was a long pause between them.

Bill: Can I see your tits? Please?

Elle pulled off her shirt and took a few photos to see what angle and lighting looked best. Once she captured them, she hit send.

Bill: Very nice, thaaaaaank yyooooouuuuuuu!!

Elle: I’ll leave you to it then… good night Bill.

Bill: I appreciate that. Good night Elle.

Elle placed her phone on her nightstand and let her imagination run wild with images of what Bill could be doing right now. She sighed and thought, “Well… if he’s doing it, why not?” She opened up the drawer, pulled out her vibrator and took care of where her and Bill had left off.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle finds out some surprising news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting last week, I was having... well a week.

The Emmy’s were quickly approaching and things around the office were tense. Add to that they would begin shooting on Tuesday after the Emmy’s which meant table reads and a lot of running around making sure things were ready to go. To say that Bill was busy, was a complete understatement. Between juggling the show, press, family, press, training, and even more press, him and Elle had not spent time together outside of working since after their second date. 

Friday morning, Elle was feverishly making script edits when Bill showed up in her doorway. He was facing another weekend of press and events related to the Emmy’s that he had to attend. He looked haggard with dark circles under his eyes. He stood there silently waiting to come in.

“Oh god, what’s wrong? Come in!” she said motioning him towards her desk.

Bill walked in sullenly shutting and locking the door behind him. “Stand up and come here…” he said pointing to a spot directly in front of him.

Elle obeyed. “Bill, are you ok--”

She didn’t even have a chance to finish before he wrapped his strong arms around her, burying his face in her neck. Elle stroked his back as he just held her silently. They stayed there for a long time, his grip tightening around her. A lump started growing in her throat, and tears started to well up in her eyes. They had both been so busy, that Elle didn’t even realize how much she desired his touch.

Bill’s grip loosened as he straightened back up and carefully planted his lips onto hers for a single soft kiss.

She looked up at him as he pulled his face away from hers, “Do you feel better?” she said blinking the tears from her eyes.

Bill nodded and then raised an eyebrow at her before asking., “Are you crying?

Elle scoffed, “Whaaaat... no, its just allergies?” But she wasn’t fooling him.

He looked down at her with an amused pout, “Awww… that’s really sweet.”

“Sorry, I got weirdly emotional during that… get off my ass Hader.” Elle teased.

Bill smiled and started to gently sway his hips against hers. “Soooo… are you free Sunday afternoon?”

Elle eyed him suspiciously, “Maybe? But I thought you were super busy for the rest of 2018?”

Bill nodded, “Oh I am, but I wanted to see if you wanted to come by for my tux fitting?”

She gave him a sideways smirk, “Hmmm….”

“I’m scheduled for four hours, but it won’t take that long. I’ll pick out the black one and move on.” Bill raised his eyebrows, “Pleeeeeeeaaaasseeee?”

Elle rolled her eyes, “Fine, I’ll be there.”

Bill hugged her close to him again, “It starts at 1:00, but you can come by earlier if you want.” He finally released her from his arms and sat down in the chair next to him. Her office felt so cramped when he was in there.

“Hey, what are you wearing by the way?” Bill asked.

Elle looked at him questioningly, “Like right now?” She looked down at her outfit.

“No, to the Emmy’s?” he raised his eyebrows.

“Am I going? I didn’t know that I was going?” Elle’s eyes were wide. “I’m NOT going as your date right?”

Bill shook his head, “Oh no no no no, also sorry about that.”

Elle rolled her eyes and sighed with relief, “No, I get that… I just didn’t think I was going.”

“Fucking hell, okay, you’re invited. I want you to be there.” He grabbed hold of her hand. “Amy should have told you. I’ll get her to send over what you need to know, okay?”

Elle nodded casually, “Yeah, cool cool cool, ummm fuck, I have no idea what to wear.”

Bill cocked his head to the side in thought, “How ‘bout this? I’ll ask my stylist Mark. Technically, you’re representing the show so it can count as a business expense for me. Here, I’ll text him right now.” He pulled out his phone and started feverishly typing.

“Bill, no you don’t have to do that. I can figure something out--”

He paused her with a look, “What have I told you about accepting help? And you’re just as busy as I am this week, you won’t have time to find a dress.”

Elle gave him a throaty frustrating growl, “Fine… But I’m paying for it, not you.” 

Bill handed her his phone, “Here, he needs your sizes.”

She typed in what Mark asked, and gave him colors and styles she liked. “I’ve never been styled by anyone before.” She leaned back against her desk.

“He’s really great… he helped me find stuff to wear during interviews.”

She handed the phone back to him, “Here, he wants a photo.”

He glanced at her reply to Mark and his eyes went wide. “Oh wow…”

“What is it?”

“Just… umm…” he suddenly got very shy, “It’s just your bra size. I didn’t know they came in that letter...”

Elle’s cheeks grew pink, “Oh… yeah. I-- I just have a smaller ribcage, besides Bill, you’ve seen them.”

He stepped towards her and placed his hands on her waist, bending down to kiss her. “But that was only a photo,” he said quietly, “I want to see you undressed in front of me.” He smiled at her.

Elle pulled away and put her hands on her hips, “Not here at the office…”

“Fine,” he pouted before he snapped the photo. He started to laugh, “You look so sassy in this photo.” He turned it around and showed her. He had caught her mid eye roll and with a devilish grin.

She started giggling, “That’s really great.”

He paused and smiled at her, “Come here, I want a picture of us.”

Bill stood up stretched out his arm turning the phone to face them. He took a series of photos of the two of them in quick succession with the very last two him surprising her with a kiss on the cheek. They huddled together looking through them and smiled. Seeing the both of them in a photo made it feel a lot more official. 

Bill gave her one last hug, “I’ll send these to you. I need to leave, I feel like I’ve been in here for too long.”

As he started to open the door Elle stopped him. Her stomach was a little nervous, but now just felt right, “Oh hey Bill… I think I’m ready to call you my boyfriend.”

He smiled at her, “Good, because I already called you my girlfriend when I texted Mark… and I’m about to call you my girlfriend when I send these photos to my dad.”

“Bill!” But before she could say anything else he swung open the door.

“Byeeeee!” he said as he stepped out into the hallway.

Elle shook her head and thought, “What am I getting myself into?”

* * *

Later that afternoon Amy ran into her office, “Oh my god! Elle! Bill just told me. I’m so sorry you didn’t know!”

Elle looked at Amy, “About what?”

“The Emmy’s!” Amy sat down across from Elle.

“Oh! Amy, it's fine. I’ve got a dress I can borrow…” she lied.

“I just figured Bill would have told you because… you know…” Amy raised her eyebrows.

Elle got really nervous but decided to play dumb, “Amy, I don’t read eyebrows.”

“Elle, because… the thing…” Amy was making all sorts of hand gestures.

“Amy, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Stop playing dumb, because you and Bill are…” Amy lowered her voice to a whisper, “dating?”

Elle’s eyes grew wide. “Shut the door,” she whispered. Amy leaned back and swung the door closed. “How do you know?”

Amy shrugged, “Alec let it slip but I think I’m the only other person that knows. God, I’ve been dying to talk to you about it!”

“Fucking Alec,” Elle started rubbing her forehead with her hand. “Does Bill know that you know?”

“I don’t think Bill knows that I know, especially if you didn’t know that I know…”

Elle picked up her phone, “He needs to know that you know.”

She shot off a text to Bill

Elle: Amy knows.

Elle heard quick steps down the hallway and then Bill burst into her office, quickly shutting the door behind him.

“What the fuck Amy? How do you know?” Bill whispered. He walked around Elle’s desk to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

Amy looked back at Bill, “Alec let it slip! I think I’m the only one that knows though.”

“Why didn’t Alec tell me that you know?” asked Bill.

“I don’t know!” Amy said, raising her voice a little.

Elle put her hands up, “Can we please stop saying the word ‘know’ because it's lost all of its meaning now.”

Amy smiled, “This is really cute by the way.” She said pointing to them.

Elle looked up at Bill, they smiled at one another and Bill lightly squeezed her shoulders.

“We’ve been so careful Amy.” Elle revealed.

“You have! I really didn’t have any idea until Alec told me and then I could totally see it,” said Amy.

“What do you mean?” asked Bill.

Amy shifted nervously in her seat, “I just noticed some lingering glances and a lot of ‘closed-door meetings’ between the two of you, that’s all.”

Elle looked up at Bill, “They have been more frequent the past few weeks bud.” Elle looked back across the desk at Amy, “The weird thing is, most of those have been us working.”

Bill nodded, “Wait, Amy how did all of this come up?”

“Because I figured you were going to tell her about the Emmy’s which is why I didn’t mention it. I figured you two had your own thing happening. I mean, I kn-- I’m aware you’re not public about dating but I thought you’d at least say something.” Amy said to Bill. “Anyways, I just emailed you all the information, tickets, seating, etc. so you should be good to go, Elle. Again, I’m so sorry.”

“It really is totally okay,” Elle said consoling her. “But please don’t tell anyone about us.”

Amy looked at both of them, “Secret is safe with me. And I don’t think anyone else kn— is aware.” She paused, “But are you going to tell people?”

Bill and Elle looked at each other and shrugged. Elle started adding up the people that knew in her head. Amy left her office but Bill stayed behind. “Oh wait, Amy, please leave the door open!” Elle shouted as she left.

Elle turned to Bill, “Who all have you told?” she asked quietly.

Bill looked up, “ummm, so Alec, my dad, Mark... oh Duffy knows but not because I told him, because he figured it out… my publicist knows just in case…Conan... I think that’s it.

Elle looked at him annoyed, “Bill, I’ve literally only told my mom… Who scolded me for getting involved with my boss.”

A wide uncomfortable smile crossed Bill’s face, “Oh… Oops?”

* * *

On Saturday, Elle went to go meet her friend who got her the job, Janine, for a hike in the hills. After a stressful few weeks, she needed to blow off some steam and she hadn’t been around friends in weeks.

The late summer sun warmed her pale skin as she stepped out of the car onto the dusty gravel of the parking area. She was stowing away her valuables when she was tackled by a leggy brunette.

“Where the fuck have you been?!” Janine shouted as she hugged Elle’s neck tightly.

Elle hugged her back squeezing her around the ribs, “Working! Like all the time….working.”

Janine pulled back and held Elle by the shoulders, “But do you love it?”

A huge smile spread across Elle’s face, “Yes,” she hugged Janine again, “Thank you so much lady. I seriously owe you.”

“Just thank me in your acceptance speech when you win an Emmy one day.” Janine bent down to grab her water bottle.

Elle rolled her eyes, “Yeah right… but okay.”

“Girl, what have I told you? You have to envision your dreams for them to come true…” Janine said, spreading her arms up to the sky. “Plus, you are super talented and could probably get a development deal with HBO at some point.”

“What are you talking about?” Elle shut her doors and they started their hike.

“Have you heard of that show Fleabag on Amazon?” asked Janine.

Elle nodded, “Of course, Phoebe Waller Bridge is a goddess and I wish I was half as talented as her.”

Janine side-eyed Elle, “You are… don’t you have that one-woman show you put together?”

Elle nodded again, “Yes, but that needs some major work.”

“Hmm… well if only you had access to some of the most talented minds in comedy… Oh wait you do! You work with Alec Berg and Bill Hader…” Janine said, lightly shoving Elle on the shoulder.

As writing for the show was wrapping up and they were beginning production, Elle was wondering what she would do next. Second City was already asking her to come back to perform and lead classes. She had a few projects she wanted to focus on and she was even considering if she should start auditioning for some roles. She would get the occasional acting job through Second City, but nothing serious. She did really miss being on stage and performing. But besides her pilots she submitted for her job, she hadn’t shared anything else that she had written with Bill and Alec. It hadn’t come up in her conversation with Bill, but of course they were mostly talking about Barry or when they were finally going to be able to spend time together again.

“Fine… I’ll think about it.” Elle said to appease her friend.

They walked in silence for a bit enjoying the fresh air and the exercise.

“Hey, how is the job going? The last I heard from you was that text where you were googling photos of stab wounds? It sounded so grisly.” Janine said through labored breaths.

Elle snorted, “Oh yeah! That was a weird day in the writer’s room.” Elle had already told Bill she was going to tell Janine about them but she was trying not to just blurt it out. She wanted it to come up casually in conversation like a normal conversation that you were dating someone…

“How’s working with Alec and Bill?” asked Janine.

Elle smiled, “It's amazing. Alec is so smart about writing and is so eager to share his experience and help you get the story right. I’ve learned so much from him and... Bill…” Elle sighed. “He’s hilarious and kind, and just so generous--”

“He’s also hot as fuck--” interrupted Janine.

Elle stopped on the trail and looked back at her friend. “What did you say?”

Janine took a few gulps of water, “I said, he’s also fucking hot. Do you not think so? I thought you totally had a crush on him?”

“Janine, what are you talking about?” Elle said playing dumb which she really should know by now that she doesn’t need to play dumb because no one believes her playing dumb act.

“Elle, for an entire year you had a running bit of just sending me gifs of Bill Hader… those were the only gif responses you sent. Why do you think I put you in for that writing job?”

Elle had honestly forgot that she had that running bit with Janine, “Oh… yeah… umm”

“What’s going on Elle, are you about to throw me off the side of the hill?”

Elle let out a frustrated growl, “Fuck… okay I need to tell you something.” She pulled Janine off the trail and into a set of thorny bushes.

“Ouch, what the fuck Elle, why are we in these bushes?” Janine protested.

“Listen, I invited you out here for a reason--”

Janine interrupted her, “To murder me? Oh great.”

“Will you shut up? No, I’m not going to throw you down a hill, that would be messy and I’d totally get caught. Listen, you have to keep this a secret, you can’t tell anyone.” Elle’s face was somber and serious as she grabbed her best friend by the shoulders.

Janine looked at her friend with concern and saw that she really was hiding something. “Of course, you can trust me, okay? What’s going on?”

Elle closed her eyes tight and took in a deep breath, “I’m dating Bill Hader, like he’s my boyfriend.” Elle opened up one eye to look at her friend.

Janine’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Elle in silence. She shut her eyes and took a big gulp of water before she responded. “What… the… FUCK!” she shouted. “How long has this been going on?”

Elle was prepared for this reaction but she was a little worried she was also going to get the you shouldn’t be dating your boss talk from Janine too. She took a deep breath, “Like a month and a half or so? We’ve only really been on two dates because we’re so busy…”

Janine started lightly smacking Elle on the shoulder, “A month and a half?! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Stop hitting me, god. We have only just started telling people, well Bill started telling people, I kept it a secret. But no, seriously, it's you, Alec, Bill’s dad, my mom, Duffy found out, Alec let it slip to Amy… oh and Conan and his wife.”

“Conan? Conan who?” Janine looked at her confused.

Elle started laughing, “Conan O’Brien… our second date was dinner at his house.”

“What the fuck?!” Janine shouted again.

“You’ve got to stop shouting…” Elle heard other people on the trail coming up.

“Oh who gives a shit,” an older couple walking their dog stared at the two friends as they walked by, “Keep on walking, nothing to see here people!” Janine said to them.

“Janine!” Elle said urging her to keep her composure.

Janine stepped in close to her, her voice dropping very low, “Have you slept with him yet?”

Elle’s eyes went wide, “No…”

Janine’s face twisted with confusion, “It's been a month and a half... “ she whispered.

“Two dates Janine! We’ve been out twice.” Elle said hushedly.

They silently looked at each other before Janine asked Elle a really important question, “Are you happy? Does he make you happy?”

A small smile crossed Elle’s face, “Yes, yes he does.”

Janine sighed and smiled back, “That’s all that matters… Now can we get out of these damn bushes and you tell me all about how this happened?”

Elle jumped back on the trail with the excitement, “Oh god yes! I haven’t been able to talk to ANYONE about this… come on!”

Elle told Janine everything. She was thrilled to be able to share this news with someone and that they were genuinely happy for her. Elle asked at one point if she thought it violated rules at HBO, and Janine reassured her that this type of stuff happened all the time. For some reason, being able to dish about her new relationship with her best friend filled Elle with so much relief. 

By the time they made their way around the trail and back to their cars, Elle felt like a different person. Getting outside and getting some fresh air really helped, but also being able to share the burden of this massive news in her life helped too. Janine gave her a big hug in the parking lot.

“I will see you  _ and Bill _ at the HBO after party next Sunday.” Janine shimmied her shoulders when she said his name. It made Elle giggle. Elle hadn’t thought about the after party. It was going to be another incident of her and Bill navigating their behavior together.

When she got back in the car she had three texts from Bill Fucking Hader on her phone. They read:

Bill: I fucked up.

Bill: Henry knows.

Bill: I’m so sorry. Call me.

Elle rolled her eyes as she was waiting for him to pick up her FaceTime call.

Bill picked up, “Hold on…” He pulled the phone to his chest, “No… go with your sister. No, your nanny will be watching… Go with your sister!... I’ll be back in 15 minutes, I’m so sorry… Hi…” He brought the phone back up in front of his face.

“Hi… how are the H’s?” she asked.

Bill shook his head, “Insanely energetic… how was your hike with… Janine? Is that it?”

Elle nodded, “Good, I told her.”

Bill smiled, “Feel better?”

A goofy smile spread across her face, “Yes, she was shocked, but really happy for me.. For us.”

Bill laughed, “Well… I fucked up.”

Elle frowned, “What happened?”

Bill closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, “Henry was at this school thing and he was asking about you because he saw you at the table read and he said, ‘oh she seems so nice Bill… and very pretty…’” Bill impersonated Henry so well that it made Elle laugh, “And I said I know and I am such a terrible liar, and so I told him.”

Elle shook her head, “Bill, for someone who is literally nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Comedy Series… you suck.”

This really got Bill laughing, “I know… I’m so sorry.”

“You are being so slutty with this information.” Elle teased, tossing her braid over her shoulder.

“Ouch… don’t call me slutty…” Bill pouted. “Actually… speaking of slutty.”

Elle was intrigued, “Yes?”

“So next Sunday… would you want to come over after the Emmy’s?” he asked.

Elle’s eyebrows narrowed, “Yes, that’s what we were planning to do right?”

A blush crept onto Bill’s face, “But I was thinking you could.... stay the night?”

Elle’s eyes popped open wide, “Oh… Ohhhhhh...”

“Is that an ‘oh yes’ or an ‘oh no’?” he asked.

Elle bit her lip in thought. After her talk with Janine it had occurred to her that Emmy night would kind of be perfect. Because at the end of the night, Bill would either need consoling or congratulating, and she was confident that she was going to look amazing. “Ummmm… okay! Yes, yeah, let’s do it.” 

A truly sexy and devilish grin spread across Bill’s face, “Really?”

Elle looked down in her lap and smiled wide before looking back at her phone, “Yeah.”

“Okay another weird question and I really need to move away from people now.” He ended up walking back to his car and sitting in the front seat. Bill shook his head, “I should have just come here in the first place…”

“What’s your other weird question Hader?”

Bill’s face grew serious and deep creases appeared across his forehead. “Are you on birth control?”

Elle thought it was actually incredibly sweet that he was asking this question. She mimicked his serious face, knitting her eyebrows together. “Yes, I have an IUD.”

Bill’s face relaxed, “Cool, that’s one less errand I need to run then.”

They stared at each other smiling not really knowing what to say after that. Finally Elle broke the silence, “Okay, I’m going to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Bill kept smiling, “Byeeee”.

Elle hung up the phone just before her cheeks started to blush.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle comes over for Bill's tux fitting for the Emmy's, and he confesses a closely held secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said... its going to get smutty from here on out.

On Sunday, Elle made her way across town to Bill’s place. She had an email from Mark that told her to bring a few different pairs of shoes and a variety of bras, spanx, and other specialty undergarments if she had them. He said that his team had found some really great stuff and couldn’t wait to show her.

When she knocked on the door, Bill answered while eating a sandwich. She hadn’t eaten so she could fit into whatever Mark had brought over.

“Hi!” He kissed her on the cheek and led her in. “Want a bite of my sandwich?”

Elle shook her head, “I thought you can’t have bread?”

“Cheat day!” he ate the last few bites his sandwich and took a few sips of kombucha.

Elle sat her bag down on the couch and looked around.

“Perfect timing, Maggie just left with the girls. Sorry the place is a wreck, I need to pick up. But first...” Bill walked up to Elle and hugged her body to his, planting several sloppy kisses on her mouth and neck. He was wearing a pair of fancy track pants and a matching hoodie and he smelled like fresh laundry.

“How was your weekend?” she asked, leaning against the back of his couch.

As Bill picked up his apartment, he shared stories about his Saturday, running into Henry, and his place feeling so much smaller with three little people in it. He asked her about her Saturday hiking with Janine. She told him how it went, telling Janine about the two of them and how her legs are all scratched up because of the thorn bushes. 

“She was also asking me about what other things I was working on, and honestly I’ve been so busy with Barry that I haven’t even kept up with the other projects I had.” She got really nervous but decided, if she could talk about her career with anyone, Bill would actually have the best advice.

Bill stopped, “Really? What other projects did you have going on?”

Feeling nervous about having his full attention she took a deep breath and kept going, “Well, I’d been workshopping this like one woman show thing at Second City and a few other clubs around town. And it still needs a LOT of work… like a lot of work, but Janine has seen it and she was saying I should keep working on it and then maybe submit it to get like some interest for a pilot or a development deal… but I don’t know…”

“Have you recorded it? Would you want me to watch it? What’s it like?” he asked. He was suddenly very focused on her, and this project.

Elle started playing with her hair, “Have you heard of Fleabag?” Bill shook his head. “Really? We totally need to watch the first season but it started off as a one-woman show type thing, breaking the 4th wall style. So that’s the style it's in… I do have my show recorded but I don’t know if I want you to watch it, I’d rather just send you the latest version of it, if you want to read it.”

Bill smiled, “Elle, you don’t need to be so nervous talking to me about your career. I’m happy to read through it if you want… Do you want to act?”

She sighed, “I miss being on stage… so yes, I miss acting--”

“I wish there was something we could have you do in Barry… that would be great… like Sally’s friend or agent or something…” He looked up at her and saw her shaking her head, “Oh right, you don’t like asking for help or being given things.”

Elle rolled her eyes, “It's not that, its… I want to earn it. I don’t want to get it just because we’re together.”

Bill nodded, “Let me read it… and um… you know, you could always have Conan’s wife take a look at it. She’s a playwright.”

She had completely forgotten that her and Liza had talked about this that night during dinner. She walked over to Bill and kissed him, “That’s a brilliant idea. Thank you… I guess sleeping with you could have its benefits…"

Bill held on to her waist and raised an eyebrow, “That means we have to start sleeping together though…” He leaned down and kissed her back a little harder, this time gently sliding his tongue into her mouth.

Elle gently pulled away, “Hmmm.. that’s right we do, don’t we?”

He smiled down at her and kissed her again, tightening his grip on her waist. They stood together kissing for a little bit longer until Bill pulled away, “Okay, unless you are really quick at jacking off, we need to cool it. Mark will be here soon and I can’t have an erection during a fitting.”

Elle could already feel his dick starting to harden against her. She let out a sigh, “I’m pretty decent at hand jobs but I’m not quick.” She gave his body a quick squeeze before backing away from him to walk into the kitchen and get a glass of water. 

He followed behind her, “I’d be okay with a slow hand job.” 

Elle turned around to glare at him and then remembered something she had always been a little curious about. “Wait… can I ask you a question?”

“About hand jobs? Do you want me to show you?” Bill mimicked like he was about to pull his pants down.

Elle laughed, “No, not about hand jobs. Um… that night that we fell asleep watching Ashes and Diamonds… did you wake up with a boner?”

Bill had pushed the events of that night out of his memory because he had so much shame after what happened. When she mentioned this, all the memories of that night came back to him.

He started laughing, realizing how ridiculous it was now, “Oh… Yes. Yes I did.”

Elle started giggling, “I knew it! I knew that story about your knee was bullshit.”

Bill scratched his jaw, “So this is kind of a really pervy horny old man story, are you sure you want to hear it?”

Elle raised an eyebrow, “Well, now I’m incredibly intrigued, so yes.”

Bill shook his head and looked around the room afraid to make eye contact with her, “I had a very graphic vivid sex dream about you when I fell asleep on the couch, and when I woke up, oh Elle, it was bad. So the entire time we talked, I had that blanket in front of me to hide it. Then when I went back to get that pillow, I had to tighten my sweatpants and tuck my dick up into the band like a fuckin’ high schooler…” he looked up at her face only to see that she had a huge smile on her face. “You’re really enjoying this aren’t you?”

She nodded her head, “Uh huh… what else?” Elle crossed her arms over her chest and shifted her weight which accentuated the curve in her hips. 

He swallowed hard trying to ignore the throbbing in his cock. “This next part is really embarrassing…” Bill reached down and adjusted himself. “Then before I went to sleep, I locked the door to my bathroom and jacked off while you were sleeping on the couch.”

Elle’s eyes grew wide and her jaw dropped. As he recounted this story, she could see him trying to fight the sensation growing in his groin. She smiled at him, “Well, it's too bad that I couldn’t have helped you out, because I really could have helped you with that.” She started sauntering towards him.

Bill swallowed hard again, as she stood in front him, reaching towards the waistband of his pants and slipping her fingers beneath the elastic of his boxer briefs. She lazily ran her fingers along the front of his hips, tickling the coarse tufts of hair and tugged him towards her. “Elle, what are you doing?”

She rolled her eyes and smirked up at him, “I just see that you seem to be having that same problem… and I thought, maybe I could help this time.”

Bill licked his lips nervously, “But you said you were pretty slow at hand jobs…”

She carefully slipped her hand into his pants pressing her palm into his cock, feeling it grow harder with her touch, “Oh I had something in mind that would work much quicker…”

Bill groaned against her touch. He gently squeezed her shoulders with his hands, “Holy shit… um what did you have in mind?” 

Before she answered she dropped down onto her knees and Bill’s eyes grew wide. She gripped the top of his pants and started to slowly pull them down. She wanted to make sure Bill was okay with this before she kept going. She raised her eyebrows and looked at his crotch before glancing back up at him. He nodded his head eagerly, assuring her that she could keep going. “Take off your shirt…”

Bill did as he was told as she lowered his pants and underwear midway down his thighs allowing his erection to spring out towards her face. She grabbed onto his shaft with one hand and started stroking as she kissed the head of his cock. Bill groaned again, “But what if Mark is early?” he breathlessly protested.

Elle knelt there admiring the size of his cock before she pressed the underside of it to her mouth, “Shhhhh…” he groaned again, “No one else is as committed to showing up early as you are Bill.”

He looked down at her, “I don’t think you realize how early I can be if you know what I mean....”

Her lips curled into a smile as she placed his cock in her mouth and began to suck. His skin tasted salty and smelled like fresh soap. She let the inside of her cheeks close around every ridge and vein as she took him deeper into her mouth. Her tongue nimbly massaging him as she started to move her head in a gentle rhythm.

“Holy fuck…” he threw his head back and closed his eyes, fighting the urge to thrust his hips and trusting her ability to send him over the edge. 

She used her saliva for lubrication and wrapped her hand around his shaft, moving her hand and mouth in unison. She was laser-focused on making him cum. Her other hand reached up his body to brace herself so she had some leverage. His belly was soft and the epitome of “dad bod” but his chest was strong and firm against her hand. 

Bill was moaning and slinging together expletives with his head tilted back. He knew once he looked down at her lips firmly around his cock, he would be moments away from cumming. When her hand made its way up his torso, he gripped it tight, slouching down to suck on her fingers. She moaned and the deep throaty vibrations reverberated into him. 

He looked down, placing a hand gently behind her head, “I’m so close, don’t stop… oh god…”

A deep growling “Fuck” escaped from his lips. “Fuck! I’m cumming! I’m cumming!” His fingers dug into her hair and he held her head still, his body shaking erratically with his release. 

His load shot into her mouth and she realized she was going to have to do something very unsexy, and spit this out somewhere. She carefully closed her mouth and held up her finger as to say, “give me a second!” She darted over to the sink and spit his semen out of her mouth and into the sink of dirty dishes.

Bill leaned against the kitchen counter shirtless and with his relaxed dick still out giggling. “Why didn’t you just swallow?”

Elle turned on the faucet and cupped water into her mouth, rinsing and gargling. “That’s not what I wanted for lunch!”

He carefully pulled his pants back up and started cackling, “it’s got protein right?”

She turned around to face him, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her lips were plump and red and she had a satisfied smile on her face. “Bill, jizz makes me all bloated on an empty stomach.”

He couldn’t hold back his laughter. They stood across from one another trying to catch their breath. Bill crossed the distance between them and cupped his hands around her face looking her directly in the eyes. His thumbs gently traced the outline of her temples. “That was incredible. Thank you.” He kissed her tenderly on the mouth. She placed her hands on his chest feeling the dark curly hair brush across her finger tips. 

Then they heard a knock at the door.

Bill went to go answer it and Elle whispered across the room, “Dude! Put your shirt back on!

“Oh right… why did you have me take it off?”

She shrugged, “Why not?”

Bill’s stylist Mark and his assistant Aria pulled in a rolling rack of garment bags before they introduced themselves. They worked quickly to get everything set up in Bill’s bedroom so he could try on what Mark brought in. Mark just asked one thing of Bill, “At least try each of them on before you decide.”

Elle perched herself on the bed as Bill got dressed in his closet. Bill tried on a dark blue tux, a brown one, a black tux with a little bit of sheen. He looked so good in clothes. He was tall and lean, with freakishly long legs. To be honest, they all looked amazing on him but the winning one was apparent as soon as he put it on. 

He walked into the bedroom buttoning up the jacket and Elle’s jaw dropped. Even with his messy hair, glasses and 5 day stubble, he looked gorgeous. “I like this one, what do you think?” He was too busy looking down at the jacket to see her face…

But Mark didn’t miss it, “I think that’s it.”

Bill looked up at Elle and saw her face. He smiled, “Does this look okay?”

Elle blinked a few times to calm her heart that was beating like crazy in her chest and then she nodded. “Yeah… it looks incredible. You look incredible.”

“Let me mark it and take some notes for alterations,” said Mark.

Once Bill “picked out the black one”. It was time for Elle to try on the things they brought in for her. She tried on something black and strappy that hugged every curve, which was fine. She then put on a red gown with a balconette style neckline that made her tits look incredible, but didn’t feel like her. She tried on a similar one in black, and she liked it. When she showed them both to Bill she thought his eyes were going to pop out of his sockets. 

“I knew you had breasts but I didn’t know they could look like that…” he stammered. 

She laughed, “Well, they don’t. They are usually a few inches lower than this.” She looked at her silhouette in the mirror. “I like both of these…” she said scrunching her face.

But Aria interjected, “But they don’t feel right?”

Elle put her hands on her hips, she was correct, “Yeeeah…”

Aria stepped up behind her, “I’ve got one more for you. Come on…”

As she stood in Bill’s closet, Aria unzipped a garment bag and held up a strappy blue dress. Elle squinted, “oh I don’t know…”

“Just try it on. This is something I picked out. It’s actually a vintage Valentino nightgown, but I think with the right structure under it, it will look amazing.”

Elle carefully stepped into the gown. It was buttery royal blue satin that had a deep plunging neckline that met in a large loopy bow. The back was open except for two straps that crossed. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and the most beautiful thing she had ever worn. When she turned around and looked in the mirror, tears started to fill her eyes. “Oh my god…” The bias cut satin draped around her waist and hips, cascading to the floor.

“Let me see it!” Bill shouted from his bedroom.

Elle turned to Aria and whispered, “I kind of want to make him wait.” Elle smoothed the fabric around her waist. Aria nodded in agreement.

“Come on!” he shouted again.

“NOPE!” Elle yelled from the closet. She quickly changed back into her clothes and walked back into the bedroom. 

“Why?” Bill said pouting.

“Shh.. Spoilers Hader.” She sat down next to him on the bed and nudged him with her shoulder. 

“Fine,” he said before wrapping his arm around her and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dress is based on this photo https://poshmark.com/listing/VINTAGE-VALENTINO-INTIMO-1970S-ROYAL-BLUE-GOWN-5978b46d36d5940173022516
> 
> Copy and paste link into browser to see it.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill and Elle go to the Emmy's.

The next week flew by in a flash with everyone running around preparing for shooting and the Emmy’s. Elle and Bill barely saw one another at work that week and caught up over late night phone calls and text sessions. He often begged her for an emergency to get out of a dinner or party that week, but instead she took to trying to make him laugh anytime he checked his phone.

Finally it was Sunday. Several of the other writers and producers on the show were all going to share a limo together. Because Elle was staying the night at Bill’s on Sunday, she had to go drop off her overnight bag at his place before meeting up with everyone else. He was getting ready nearby at a hotel and had left her a key to his apartment on her desk on Thursday.

She had butterflies in her stomach for so many reasons. She was nervous about how she looked, nervous for Bill and the rest of the team, and definitely very nervous about after the awards.

Once they arrived at the building, they loitered together in the lobby until they were shuffled into their seats. Elle was nursing a glass of champagne waiting to hear from Bill. Finally her phone vibrated.

Bill: Almost done with red carpet shit.

Elle: Please tell me you didn’t stand how you normally stand for photos.

Bill: Too late, I did. 

Elle: Fuckin’ Hader. 

Bill: Can’t wait to see you. :*

This was followed by a photo of him that Mark had taken while he was getting dressed. He looked unbelievably handsome.

“Who ya talkin’ to?” said Emily from behind her. 

Elle twirled around. She had been caught red fucking handed. Elle eyed her suspiciously, “You saw that, didn’t you.”

Emily smiled and nodded her head. “Uh huh, but I already knew.”

“Dammit!” Elle closed her eyes and stomped her foot. “Who the fuck spilled?”

“I’m not going to incriminate anyone, just know that I have my sources,” shared Emily.

Elle rolled her eyes. She was actually pretty anxious about people finding out. She whispered quietly to Emily, “Do you think people are going to be mad?”

Emily looked at her questioningly, “Why? No, we are actually kind of relieved and honestly, really happy. You’re good.” Emily looked past her, “I think he just got to his seat.”

Elle looked up and saw Bill slouching over his phone before she got a text from him that said he was at his seat and asking where she was. She spotted him, Henry, and Alec down near the front chatting. She took a deep breath.

“Go… you look beautiful.” Emily pushed Elle out of their row. 

Elle carefully made her way down the crowded aisle towards Bill. She was about 10 rows away when he finally saw her. He was in the middle of saying something to Alec when his whole face softened and his mouth curled into a small smirk. 

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him and felt like she was floating. But before she was able to get to Bill, Henry stepped between them and gently grabbed her by both arms, “You look radiant, Elle.” he said before kissing her on each cheek.

Elle smiled, “Thank you Henry.” Did she really just get cock-blocked by the Fonz?

Henry turned to Bill, “Bill, doesn’t she look radiant?”

Bill’s eyes didn’t leave her, “Yes, Henry. She does.”

Elle walked over to Bill and they lightly hugged and delicately kissed one another on each cheek. Bill lingered a little and whispered in her ear, “You look really beautiful.” The stubble along his jawline lightly brushed her cheek, sending goosebumps down her arms. 

“Thank you, you look… hot,” she whispered back to him. Alec, who was standing next to Bill must have heard and shot them both with a warning glance.

A nervous laugh escaped his lips, “Thanks.”

She gently wrapped an arm around his waist, using the excuse that it was very noisy for them to be close. His arm rested gently across her shoulders, his hands were soft and warm against her bare skin.

She squeezed his side, “How are you feeling?” she asked looking up at him.

He shrugged, “I’m doing okay… it's not like I’m going to win or anything…” 

Elle turned to look at him, raising an eyebrow. She didn’t tell Bill, but she had read the rumors all over the internet about the chances of it going to him. Of course Donald Glover and Ted Danson were also nominated, but there was this weird buzz around Bill being nominated. “Don’t count yourself out Hader…”

He smiled down at her and squeezed her shoulder, “Hey, I do have something to ask you… would you mind if I introduced you to some people at the after party?”

She shook her head, “I’d love to meet anyone you want me to meet…”

“Cool and then we can duck out early and head back… to ya know.” Bill gestured with his eyebrows.

Elle nodded her head. Her body was buzzing in anticipation of this evening. She was so incredibly excited for Bill, for the show, and then aching to get back to his place so they could spend some time alone together. 

She squeezed him again, “Okay, I’m going to go say hi to some people, break a leg.” She turned to Alec, “Same for you… and I’ll see you later.” As she turned to leave, she was spotted by an old friend, Donald Glover, who waved wildly at her.

Bill saw the interaction and turned to her, “Wait? How do you--”

“Wow Bill, you really studied my resume.” He looked at her puzzled so she clued him in, “I wrote on the gas leak season of Community, he’s an old friend…” she said. She squeezed his arm and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek again, “See ya.”

Bill watched her beautiful body move through the crowd, unable to take his eyes off of her. Henry was right, she did look radiant. He felt a pang of jealousy as he watched her animatedly hug Donald, watching their faces smile and laugh. He sat down next to Alec with a sigh. 

Eventually everyone made their way back to their seats as the program began. The awards for comedy shows were some of the first ones to be handed out, including Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Comedy Series… or the award in which Bill was nominated.

The first shocker of the night happened when Henry won for his performance. The writing staff went wild whooping and hollering in appreciation. Then in what felt like no time at all, it was time for the award Bill was nominated for.

Elle leaned over to Duffy who was sitting next to her. “I’m shaking, I’m so nervous for him!”

Duffy laughed, “Do you need to hold my hand?”

She nodded and they gripped hands as Michael Douglas stepped forward. Emily, seeing Elle and Duffy next to her, grabbed Elle’s hand in solidarity. They sat there squeezing on to one another tightly. 

“...and the award goes to...” Micheal Douglas opened the envelope, “Bill Hader!”

The entire row shot up to their feet cheering. Elle watched as Bill looked to Alec, and then looked back to her. He looked so surprised and overwhelmed. She smiled and cheered for him as he turned to walk towards the front. She laughed as he was briefly hugged by Jay Pharoah who was wearing the Teddy Perkins costume and she was very sure Bill had no idea that it was Jay in there. He bounded up the steps two at a time, his legs looking like he was wearing stilts. 

He was adorable and sweet, and so nervous as he thanked his fellow actors and all of the people that worked with him. Finally ending his speech with a shout out to his daughters, he turned to go off the stage. 

Knowing that he was likely receiving hundreds of text messages, Elle left her phone in her lap. But she was anxiously waiting to hear from him.

About 40 minutes later she felt her phone vibrate with a text message.

Bill: Hey, can you come help me?

Elle’s eyebrows furrowed before she responded.

Elle: Are you okay?

Bill: Yeah, my anxiety is pretty bad right now. Can you come meet me somewhere?

Elle: Yes. Where are you?

Bill: The men’s bathroom.

Elle left her seat and ran out to the lobby. Bill told her the bathroom he was in and she walked as quickly as she could in her heels. Her heart was racing as she went to him. She stopped just outside the bathroom door. 

She waited for a guy to walk out.

“Hey, are there a lot of people in there?” she asked.

He turned around, “Just a guy at the urinal and someone on the shitter.”

“Thanks” she said before ducking inside.

The guy at the urinal didn’t even look as she walked up to the only occupied stall and knocked. Bill opened the stall door and pulled her in before he sat back down again. It was a cramped stall with just Bill, but the both of them made it nearly impossible to move. He held on to her hand and kissed it.

“I’m so glad to see you.” He said, placing her hand against his cheek.

“Hader, what happened?” She placed her free hand on the other side of his face. He was sitting with the Emmy in his lap.

“I won this thing” he lifted it slightly before placing it back on his legs, “And immediately got pulled into press asking questions that I wasn’t prepared to answer… Fuck! I think I told someone that I was  _ super _ single. I’m so sorry.”

Elle laughed, “I don’t care. What else?”

“I saw Henry, and I saw John…. John won! And I just hadn’t taken a single moment to let it sink in. So I’ve been in here for the last 10 minutes afraid to go back out there.” His face was soft and expressive as he talked. He let go of her hand and reached out to run his hand up and down the fabric over her thigh. He hung his head, “I just don’t know why I won this fuckin’ thing.”

Elle softly grabbed his chin and lifted his face to look at her, “I can’t speak for everyone, but I can tell you why I think you deserve it,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “...and its not just because we’re going to be fucking later…” Bill smiled at her. She raised her voice back to a normal but quiet volume. “You’re amazing Bill. I remember the episode and the entire time Chris is talking and you are in the shot, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. It was how you listened. God, Bill, your eyes are so expressive when he says that he can’t do this, I remember your eyes went wide and with that look, I realized that Barry was going to have to kill him. And my heart broke because you see it on your face… God Bill… that whole fucking episode, you took the audience with you and they felt what you felt and I was crying my eyes out…” He reached up and held her hand. “ And it isn’t just Barry, it's your performance in the Skeleton Twins that made HBO believe in you to see that there was more to you than Stefon and impression parades. Bill, you're an incredible actor and you deserve this.”

He stood up in front of her, their bodies filling the cramped space between the toilet and the door. Holding the Emmy down by his side, he reached up to take her face in his hand and brought his mouth down on hers. Their lips parted and she cautiously reached her tongue into his mouth. She felt his jaw open slightly as he started to massage her tongue with his. He slowly closed his lips against hers and pulled away.

“Thank you… for what you said and coming to make out with me in a men’s bathroom to make me feel better.” He smiled down at her.

“Bill, I’ve always got your back buddy…” she squeezed him around the waist.

Bill reached for the latch but stopped, “Wait… did you get lipstick on me?”

Elle shook her head, “No, it’s worn off by now… ”

They carefully extricated themselves from the bathroom stall happy to find the entire bathroom had emptied. Bill sent Elle out first and he was going to wait a minute before stepping out himself. She quickly turned the corner to run into the women's bathroom and replace her lipstick when she ran into D’Arcy.

“Hey there lady! You look… so beautiful tonight.” D’Arcy said, giving Elle a quick hug.

Elle leaned over the counter to reapply, “Thank you, you look amazing… as always.”

D’Arcy looked at Elle skeptically, “Were you smooching someone?” she asked teasingly.

Elle’s cheeks flushed bright red, “Me?... Oh no… Are you heading back in?” she said quickly changing the subject.

“Sure…” she said, drawing it out and suspicious of Elle’s erratic behavior. As Elle opened the door the timing couldn’t have been worse. Bill had just stepped out of the men’s bathroom putting on lip balm.

Bill spotted the both of them smiling and then immediately his eyes went wide. D’Arcy’s jaw dropped open as she looked back and forth between the two of them. 

Bill took two long steps and was standing right in front of them in a split second saying, “Sh-sh-sh-sh… no, no, no, no, no!”

Elle was frozen. D’Arcy was one of Bill’s oldest friends, but also friends with his ex-wife as she used to be their nanny. This was bad… this was very very bad.

She smacked Bill hard on the shoulder, “Stop shushing me. What is going on between you two?” She whispered. 

Bill scratched his jaw with his free hand. “She’s my girlfriend?!” he said smiling. 

D’Arcy looked back at Elle, “Holy shit! When did this happen?”

Elle was stifling back laughter. She realized this was becoming so pointless to try and hide anymore. She snorted loudly. Her giggles started infecting Bill too. He started laughing. Elle struggled to catch her breath, “Like a month ago or so?” She said between laughs. 

“Why is this so funny? Bill, does Maggie know?” D’Arcy asked seriously. 

Bill snorted as he tried to catch his breath, “Yes…” he turned to Elle, “Oh by the way Maggie knows…”

Tears started filling Elle’s eyes as she sputtered out, “Emily knows too… and I told Donald.”

Bill started to slap his leg and double over in laughter. “Wait, do you know who I hugged in that Teddy Perkins costume?”

Elle had completely forgotten that and another wave of giggles came over her, “Yes! It was Jay Pharoah!”

Bill was now completely inconsolable with laughter.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha…” D’Arcy gave a fake a laugh, “What is so funny?”

Elle took in a few deep gulps of air. She put her hand on D’Arcy’s shoulder. “We have been trying to keep it a secret… but both of us keep telling people. It’s just fucking useless at this point.”

“Wait who knows?” She asked.

Bill was trying to catch his breath but couldn’t.

Elle spoke up, “I’ll tell her. You go…”

Bill nodded and brought D’Arcy in for a one armed hug, “Are you mad?”

D’Arcy smiled at him as he pulled away, “Are you happy?”

He looked over at Elle, fighting back another round of giggles. “Deliriously… I’ll see you later.” He grabbed Elle’s hand and squeezed it as he left.

“D’Arcy, I’m so sorry, I should have told you.” This was another one of the many closely missed connections between Bill and Elle. D’Arcy and Elle had known each other for several years, even while she was working for Bill as a nanny. 

“I mean, I’m a little miffed but it’s still pretty new for the both of you… Who else knows?” D’Arcy took her arm as they walked back to their seats. 

Elle went through the list of people and how they all found out. “...like I said… pointless.”

D’Arcy stopped and turned to face Elle before they opened the doors to the theater. “Elle, you know I love you and I love Bill. And I’m really pleased for both of you… really.” 

Tears started to brim her eyelids, “Thanks, it means a lot to hear that from you.”

They took each other in for a strong hug. 

* * *

Finally, the show ended and everyone made their way to the HBO after party. As soon as Elle walked in the door, Janine came racing over to her and wrapped her in a big hug. 

“Where’s Bill, I want to meet him?!” Janine asked.

Elle looked around to see if she could spot him. He was talking with Henry but Elle was able to get his attention. She motioned for him to come over there. At first he played like she was pointing to someone else until she got visibly annoyed and he walked over.

“Hi!” He planted a kiss on her cheek. He smelled faintly of champagne and Elle had a suspicion he was a little tipsy.

“Bill, I wanted you to meet my friend Janine, Janine this is my  _ boyfriend _ Bill.” 

Before he shook Janine’s hand he interrupted Elle, “Oh no, you can’t call me that,” he said softly.

Elle raised her eyebrows, “What?”

“No I talked to my publicist, you can’t call me that… you have to call me something different..” But Bill’s mouth tightened and a smile began to creep across his face.

“God dammit Bill… Janine, this type of shit has been happening since...we...met.” Elle smacked him slightly on the shoulder.

Bill turned to Janine but slipped his arm around Elle’s waist, “Janine, it's really nice to finally meet you. Thank you for bringing her to our attention.”

“No problem and congratulations on your win,” said Janine, laughing with the both of them.

Elle squeezed his hand that was on her waist, “Bill is this okay?”

Bill squeezed her tighter, “Oh yeah… I really did talk to my publicist and I said, ‘Hey my girlfriend is here, can I, like, touch my girlfriend?’ and he said yeah it's fine just like don’t like grab her ass or something…” Bill was definitely a little tipsy.

They stood and chatted a bit longer before Janine had to leave. “I have to go work the room, Bill it was great to finally meet you… Elle, love you” Janine gave her friend a hug and whispered in her ear, “Please tell me that you are climbing that man like a tree tonight…” 

Elle’s eyes went wide, “I’ll see you later, love you too.” She said pushing her friend along.

Bill turned to face her, his hand still resting softly on her waist, “Hey…. can I um… introduce you to some friends?” Elle nodded and Bill took a hold of her hand, squeezing it. 

Bill introduced Elle to a majority of the SNL people who were at the HBO party. Although she was anxious about making a good impression, she gave a flawless performance. She was charming, funny, and self-deprecating. Bill watched her awed. She was a natural performer as she recounted stories of moving to LA, the odd writing jobs, and even meeting him the first time. There was a sincerity and candor about her that was so engaging. 

She laughed as she met people who she had wanted to work with her whole career and finally had the opportunity to impress them in person, instead of just on paper.

Alec had begun to gather up everyone from Barry for a picture, but Bill pulled Elle aside as they walked together to meet them. “Hey… send me that script for your one-woman show…”

Elle raised her eyebrows, “What? Like right now?”

Bill shook his head, “No, but I’ve been watching you all night meeting these people and…” he paused looking down at his Emmy in his hand, “and I think you could make something really great. I’d love to be a part of it in any way that I can.”

Elle stared at him in disbelief for a second before nodding her head yes. “Sure, yeah… totally.”

“Good… now let’s go get in that group photo before Alec stares us to death.” 

They spent time with their colleagues celebrating and Elle had a little more champagne than she intended, but felt buzzed and happy. Then Bill made his big “to do” about going home and being an old man.

Elle and Bill knew they wouldn’t be able to leave together or even be in the same car with one another, especially since he won tonight. They organized it so that he would leave the party first, which everyone would expect of him. Elle would wait about half an hour and then head out. This gave Bill enough time to swing by In-n-Out and get back to the apartment, and didn’t look at all suspicious.

Elle climbed in the back of her ride and looked down at her phone. She was looking through the pictures of the cast and crew together and smiling.

“You win tonight?” the driver asked.

She smiled and thought to herself, “not yet,” before she answered. “No, but the show I work on did have some winners.”

“Oh really? What show?”, the driver had a thick italian accent.

Elle put her phone in her purse, “Barry? It's on HBO.”

“No shit! With that Bill Hader? That’s a great show. You an actress?” he said.

She shook her head, “No. I’m a writer.”

He cocked his head to the side, “Pretty lady like you should be an actress… you writing the new season?”

She smiled, “Thank you. And yes, we start filming this week.”

He got kind of quiet and squinted his eyes a bit, “Can I ask you a question?

She nodded, “Depends on the question…”

He chuckled, “Did Barry kill that detective?”

Elle put on her poker face, “Ahhhh, can’t answer that. What do you think?”

He sighed, “I hope he didn’t, but I think he did.”

Elle pursed her lips together, “You’ll just have to wait to find out then.” He slowly pulled up in front of Bill’s building.

“Fine, fine. Here ya go.” He said stopping the car.

“Thank you so much” she said. As she walked up to the door, the driver rolled down the window.

“Ma’am, hope whoever you’re going home to knows how lucky they are…”

Her cheeks blushed as she thought about Bill. “Have a good night.” she said and walked into the door.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle and Bill finally get a night alone together.

Her hands were clammy as she made her way up to Bill’s apartment. Tonight felt like a dream. With both Bill and Henry winning tonight, everyone in the cast and crew were in high spirits. But the biggest thing for Elle was that tonight was the first time she felt like Bill’s girlfriend in public. She smiled to herself as a warm radiating heat started in her chest. 

She knocked on Bill’s door and he answered. His bowtie hung untied around his neck and he had unbuttoned the neck of his shirt exposing a little crop of chest hair. “Hey! Come on, let’s eat before it gets cold… I have a funny story to tell you too.”

Elle kicked off her shoes and followed him to the table. At this point, she was ravenous. The food during the after party was less than filling and more than anything she wanted a cheeseburger. “This was the best idea Bill… Thanks for picking it up.”

They sat at the table and dug in, neither one of them talking until they had each satisfied the pains of hunger in their stomachs. She was so hungry she didn’t even notice that Bill had casually left his Emmy out on the table. She couldn’t help but stare at it, still completely impressed and proud of him.

“It’s really fucking weird, right?” he said interrupting her thoughts.

“Mmmm hmmm... “ she said with a mouth stuffed full of fries. She swallowed hard and slurped up some soda through a straw. “What was the funny story you wanted to tell me?”

Bill shoved the last bite of burger into his mouth and wiped his face with a napkin. “Oh! So I went through the drive thru and there was a woman working at the register. When I pulled up to the window, she recognized me and said, ‘Didn’t you just win an Emmy?’. I replied and said ‘Yeah’, then she went, ‘Can I see it?’ and then I show her the Emmy. Then she said, ‘Who else is in there with you?’ and is like trying to look inside. And I go, ‘It’s just me.’ and then she goes, ‘Oh, baby, that’s sad.’’’ He started laughing before he even finished the story. “I might use that during like TV appearances or podcasts… it's a good interview story right?”

Elle nodded, “Totally, you get to do voices… it's self-deprecating… My driver tonight tried to get me to tell him if Barry killed Moss.”

Bill’s eyes went wide, “What did you say?”

Elle wiped her mouth and leaned back from the table after finishing her food. “That she was abducted by aliens…”

“You should have said she got turned into a white walker.” Bill stood up and grabbed Elle by the hand.

“Oooh a little Game of Thrones slash Barry collab would be a good spin…” Elle stood up from her seat and followed him.

“Come here…”, he said. Dragging her into the living room, his arms wrapped around her body and he rested his chin on top of her head. They both knew exactly where this night was heading but Bill wanted to be patient. He also wanted to let their food digest a little bit and thought puking during sex didn’t sound attractive.

Bill pulled his phone from his pocket and queued up the album Changes (The Instrumentals) by Charles Bradley. There was a delay before the music started and he gently tossed his phone to the couch and wrapped his arms around Elle. He was getting ready to slow dance with her when the theme song to Barry came blaring through the speakers.

“Oh shit sorry… I forget to skip the first song of this album.” He went to grab his phone but Elle held on to him tight.

“Leave it… it's a good song.” She started swaying back and forth slowly to the music.

Bill started laughing, “I feel like such an asshole…” He ran his fingers up and down the exposed skin on her back as they danced together in the middle of his living room.

He waited until the end of the song before he tilted her head up so he could kiss her. Her eyes fluttered shut and she gave into him. He pulled away and held her tightly against him. “Have I told you enough how beautiful you look tonight?”

She spoke softly, her cheek against his chest, “Yes, but can I hear it again?

He lifted her chin to look into her eyes, “You look absolutely beautiful tonight.”

Her smile beamed up at him as he leaned down to kiss her again, his arms wrapping tightly around her body and grasping for anything he could hold on to.

She pulled away from him for a moment, “Bill, I feel like I should also tell you how incredibly handsome and sexy you look tonight.”

“Oh, it's part of your employment contract for you to tell me that…” he said softly, trying to be serious.

Elle raised an eyebrow, “Oh, I don’t think I saw those revisions…” she said swaying back and forth with him.

“It's part of being a showrunner, I can do that,” he said smiling.

“Does that mean I need to say that to Alec too, should I call him?” she asked.

Bill finally couldn’t hold in his laughter anymore. They stayed dancing slowly in his living room, both of them trying to make the other person laugh, and stalling because they were both so nervous about the remainder of tonight.

Deciding it was enough with the stalling, Bill made his move. He tilted her head back with his hand and held her body close to his. Her arms reached around his neck, pulling his face to hers. His mouth opened and he softly slid his tongue along her bottom lip and into her mouth. His lips were soft and hungry for her.

He carefully maneuvered their bodies to lean Elle against the arm of the chair, spreading her legs with his knee. He kept one hand behind her head and the other caressed her waist, her hip, and then he firmly grabbed her ass. She squealed in surprise and he smiled against her mouth.

Elle used this break in his kissing to pause and catch her breath. She looked up at him, his blue eyes sparkling for her. She loosened her grip on him before she asked the question they had both been waiting for all night. She bit her bottom lip and stared up at him, “Are you ready to take this back to your bedroom?”

Bill smiled and nodded. He pulled back from their embrace, “Give me two minutes, and then come meet me in my bedroom okay?” Elle nodded up at him.

Bill ran to the kitchen and grabbed a lighter from the drawer and then quickly walked down the hallway. She started to pace back and forth in the living room to calm herself. She was a bundle of nerves and emotions, happy and scared, excited and anxious. She looked down at her phone and waited and waited for the two minutes to be up. Finally, it was time.

As she walked down the hallway, candlelight flooded out of Bill’s bedroom. When she walked in the woodsy aroma of sandalwood, patchouli and amber filled her nose. Bill had placed candles on every available surface and the flickering light cast beautiful long shadows around her. Bill was standing by the bed with his hands on his hips and a big satisfied smile on his face. “Come here” his voice was quiet and low.

“Bill? When did you buy all of these candles?” Elle said looking around the room as she walked over to him.

He wrapped his hands around her waist and drew her close, “Oh I had my assistant do it.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, “You made your assistant set up your sex lair?”

He smiled, the laugh lines on his face creasing, “These are from all over the apartment... I had her order them months ago, right after we met.”

Her breath caught in her chest, “What do you mean?”

Even in the candlelight, she could see his face blush, “You smelled so good and so when I got into the car I texted Nic and asked her to find me candles that smelled like you.”

Her heart started beating faster. It was the first time she realized that perhaps from the very first moment they met, he had started falling for her. Maybe it was her own nerves that kept her from seeing it but hearing this from him seared an impression on her heart. 

She pulled back slightly, hiked up her gown, and looked down at her feet as if she was looking for something. Bill’s eyebrows knitted together, “What is it?”

“Oh I thought my panties would have just dropped right off of me after you said that.”

They laughed together. Bill drew her in close to him, slouching slightly, his cheek brushed against her own as he whispered. “We can stop at any time okay?” his breath was warm on her neck. She nodded her head against his face. His lips found the soft skin beneath her jaw and he planted soft kisses down her neck as his arms wrapped tight around her. Her knees weakened as she pressed her body against his.

“Hey Bill?” she asked.

His head sprung up and he pulled back enough to face her, “What is it?” his face was creased with worry.

She shyly looked up at him biting her bottom lip, her eyelashes fluttering, “Can I undress you?” She had dreamed of a moment like this long before they met. 

His face softened into a relaxed smile, “Oh! Yeah”.

Elle took in a deep breath to soothe her anxiety. She ran her hands up along the sharp pleats of his shirt taking time to press her hands against his firm chest. She pushed his suspenders around and off his strong shoulders feeling every indentation of his arm muscles on the way down. Her fingers delicately caressing the crisp fabric of his shirt. She carefully unbuttoned his sleeves removing the cufflinks and placing them on the nightstand. 

“The buttons might be tricky.” He said breathlessly.

She took a hand and placed around his neck, pulling his face towards hers. Her fingers wrapped around his bowtie and slowly pulled it out from under his collar as she gently kissed his lips. His hands stroked her arms sending goosebumps across her skin as she unbuttoned his shirt.

Her lips left his as she looked down to pull the shirt out from beneath the waistband of his pants. He lifted his arms out to the side as she reached around him. As she did this, she lingered her face close to his chest feeling the deep thud of his heartbeat and she placed warm moist kisses against his undershirt. His fingers drew lazy circles along the bare skin of her shoulder blades as she held him.

Her hands moved around his waist, reaching up underneath his tuxedo shirt and slowly pushed it off his shoulders, her hands lingering on his biceps as she removed it. Taking the shirt in her hands, she stepped away and folded it neatly, placing it on the bench at the end of his bed.

As she walked back to him he reached out cupping her face with his hands and kissed her hard on the mouth, his tongue only beginning to explore hers. Her fingers fumbled with the button on his pants as she tried to stay focused, but it was so hard because kissing him felt so good. He pulled away slightly again, “Do you need help with that?” he said smiling down at her.

She shook her head and giggled, “Sorry I got distracted.” In a few quick movements she unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. She tucked her hands beneath the waistband placing her hands on his hips and guided his pants down, her hands caressing his firm ass. 

She took in a deep breath and lowered her body as her hands pressed into the back of his thighs, brushing the soft skin behind his knees, and ran her hands down his strong calves. Bill slowly stepped out the pants that were now pooled onto the floor. He reached down and adjusted his erection, his breath growing labored in his chest as he watched her stand back up and lay the pants gently on top of his discarded shirt.

To his surprise when she came to stand back in front of him she squatted down once again, running her hands up the front of his shins and quadriceps. She ran her hands up and down the front and inside of his thighs, her gaze following her hands, “Bill, you have really fantastic thighs” she said quietly before looking up at him.

A small smirk crossed his face as she stared up watching his chest rise and fall with his breath. As she stood, she leaned her chest and arched her back brushing her body against his cock. Her hands flowed over his black boxer briefs and tucked themselves under his white t-shirt. Her fingers moved delicately up his sides as he lifted his arms over his head. 

“I’ll need your help with this part.” she said giggling with nerves.

Bill carefully removed the shirt over his head. Elle stepped back and admired his mostly naked body standing in front of her. She had totally taken it for granted when he stood in front of her shirtless last week.

He smiled again, “You want me to keep these on?” He said, tucking his thumbs beneath the elastic of his underwear.

She nodded, “For now. Mine are especially cute so I figure leave them on for a bit.”

His mouth curled into a half smile that lit up his eyes, “Let’s see ‘em.”

With all of the suspense created by her slowly undressing him, she suddenly felt like her own reveal would be a little anticlimactic. “I am going to be easier to undress than you were Bill.” 

He threw his head back and laughed, “Come here babe.”

Elle was already wet from undressing him but the way he called her babe turned her on even more. She took a deep breath in to calm her nerves as she stepped in close to him, the heat from his body radiating without the barrier of his clothing. He again took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply as she gently held onto his waist.

Slowly his hands fell to her neck sweeping her hair back from her shoulders, then brushing her collarbones. He pulled back from kissing her so he could watch her body respond to his touch before lightly running the back of his fingers down her breasts. He took the ends of the bow in his hands and carefully pulled watching it unravel. The beautiful blue satin loosened around her waist and he let the ties fall. He watched her chest rise and fall with her breath.

He kissed her softly again placing his hands on her shoulders and carefully slipping the straps down her arms. She shrugged her shoulders and the dress began to fall away from her chest, her waist, and fell to a puddle on the floor. His eyes were shut tight as he waited for her dress to fall away. He ran his hands down her arms before grabbing both of her hands and pulling his lips away from hers.

Bill’s face was soft and sincere as he took in her body; her full breasts, the curve of her hips, her soft pale stomach. She was wearing a high-waisted thong in a black mesh that left nothing to the imagination as he clearly saw a neat triangle of hair beneath the fabric. He took a deep breath in before gazing into her eyes, “You are absolutely breathtakingly beautiful Elle.”

She beamed up at him, “Thank you.” His compliment stirred butterflies in her stomach. She was so nervous about being naked in front of him, but the way he looked at her made it all go away.

Elle turned to the side and seductively bent over to pick up her dress. Bill reached out and placed his warm hand on her ass and said quietly, “And you’re right, these are very cute panties.”

As she stood back up he hooked a finger under the waistband and pulled her close to him. He bent down and kissed her hard, the aching in his groin was becoming too much and he wanted to do something about it. He wanted to touch her, he wanted to explore her, he wanted to taste her. Bill cupped one of her breasts with his hand, gently kneading and massaging as he held her close to his body. She moaned as he squeezed her to him and rolled her nipple between his fingers.

His lips kissed along her jawbone to her ear and he kissed and sucked at the delicate skin on her neck. He then wrapped both arms around her waist. Pulling his mouth away from her neck he whispered, “I’m gonna try something, I’m going to try to pick up you.”

Elle pulled her head back and raised an eyebrow, “Okay but lift with your legs and not your back.”

He smiled and lightly smacked her on the ass, “Jump up and wrap your legs around me.”

Elle reached her arms around his neck and sprung up, tightening her legs around his waist. He caught her by the ass with a bounce in his legs to accept her weight. She brought her lips crushing into his as he carefully walked over to the bed. He cautiously lowered her onto her back and crawled their bodies across the bed.

“Did I break you Bill?” she asked, smiling from ear to ear.

He smiled back, “Na bra, I’m good.” They both started giggling and he adjusted himself on top of her. “I’ve always wanted to do that…” he confessed as he caught his breath.

Elle’s face turned red as she remembered an article written a few months ago about whether Bill did voices in bed… and she realized she found out the answer to that question. Maybe.

“That was seriously impressive.”

Bill raised an eyebrow, “Like impress the pants off of you impressive?”

“Ohhh, definitely impress-the-pants-off-me impressive,” she said looking up into his playful blue eyes.

Bill pressed himself up onto his knees and pulled her panties down her legs. He stood up and took off his own boxers then. “You’ve already seen this old thing.” He crawled back onto the bed and slowly parted her knees.

“Bill you need to know something…” she said awkwardly. It had been a very long time since she had been with anyone and she was feeling a little bashful.

“What’s wrong?”, he said, sitting up.

She shook her head, “I… I think you ought to know… I’m already incredibly wet.” Her cheeks flushed with warmth.

His eyes got wide, “Really?”

She nodded her head yes.

He cupped her knees with his hands bringing them back together, “Elle, you have nothing to be embarrassed about okay?”

She nodded, “Come here babe.” She said trying out the phrase for herself.

Obeying her, Bill gently parted her knees and crawled to lay his body on top of her, propping himself up on his forearms and tucking his knees around her hips. A hand smoothed the hair away from her face and he brought his lips to hers. 

Their lips moved softly together. The thing about kissing Bill is that he kissed with his whole body. His hands held her close to him, his chest expanding and contracting with each breath, and his mouth and hips were fascinatingly synchronized rolling forward together. His skin was so soft and warm against hers that writhing there together naked without any sort of penetration was intoxicating.

Bill’s lips began to travel down her neck and he placed a hand firmly on her clit and began to slowly massage her. 

She sucked breath in, “Oh my god…”

Bill smiled against her skin, as he slowly licked, sucked, and nibbled his way down her body. She clumsily searched for his cock with her hands so she could begin to stroke him but he instead moved his body lower. His head was between her breasts and he started to shake his head. “Not yet, I owe you from last weekend.” His voice was low and husky. With his free hand he held her breast firmly and circled his tongue around her nipple. His other hand continued to explore her, parting her labia and inserting a finger into her. 

A high pitch squeal emitted from her throat and her back arched in response to his touch. Her hands gripped at the blanket beneath her.

His tongue was drawing a line from her chest to… “Oh god,” she thought, “I have Bill Hader between my thighs and he is about to go down on me.”

He propped himself up on his knees and removed his fingers from inside of her. He spread her knees wide and started kissing, licking, and sucking at the tender skin of her inner thigh. She propped herself up on her elbows to watch this happen, which was just as exhilarating as how it felt.

He laid his long body out between her legs and wrapped his arms around her thighs. He closed his eyes and dragged his tongue along her clitoris causing her to moan. And then he stopped and lifted his head to look at her. 

“You okay?” He said casually. 

“Mmmm hmmm” she moaned.

He closed his eyes again and dipped his head back between her legs, massaging her clit with his tongue. Then he stopped again and popped his head back up to look at her. “Does this feel okay? Do you like it?”

Elle smiled, “Yes, this is great.”

“Okay good.” He lowered his head again and wrapped his mouth around her clit and sucked gently for a few seconds before stopping again. 

Elle’s eyes were wide as he popped his head up again to look at her. She raised her eyebrows at him. 

“Because I could do something different if you want…” it was now that she could see the muscles around his eyes twitching and him bite his lower lip. 

She raised an eyebrow once she realized what was going on and then asked, “Are you doing a bit as you go down on me?”

He broke and laughed resting his cheek on the inside of her thigh. His warm breath danced across her most sensitive skin. 

She rolled her eyes and laughed with him before taking her hand to the back of his head and applying the slightest pressure, “Stop fucking around and eat me out please?”

He looked back up at her and winked before lowering his head down once again. This time he wasn’t going to stop until he had her writhing and moaning his name. 

His tongue moved inconsistently against her which only made the sensations he was sending through her body even more electric. She moaned and balled up the comforter beneath her in her fists. 

Then Bill started sucking hard on her clit, flicking his tongue up and down. As he did this Elle arched her spine throwing her head back and shouting “Bill! Oh my God!”

He gently whispered “Shhhhh!!!” against her skin like she had with him last week. 

“Oh Bill… that’s a… really great… callback” she panted. He continued his work driving her closer and closer to orgasm. His hands held tight to her hips as he felt her labia and clit swell slightly against his mouth. 

She was on the verge now and wanted him to be able to feel her orgasm pulse inside of her. “Put… fingers in me… now… no two.” He slipped in one finger and the next. Her body began to tremble as she whimpered in ecstasy. He massaged her clit through the orgasm and gently curled his fingers inside of her. He felt her muscles contract and then began to pulsate as she breathlessly called out his name over and over. Her strong thighs closed around his head and her hips gently rose as numbing electricity in her body started to settle.

He released his grip on her thighs and her legs fell open around him. He kissed the flush skin between her thighs and lifted himself up. He sat above her grinning, watching her body rise and fall with her breath.

“Fucking hell Hader, you’re really good at that.” She said propping herself up on her elbows. 

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled at her, “I’m going to go towel off and then I’ll be right back okay?” He bent down kissing her softly on the stomach before he sauntered into the bathroom. Elle watched his ass muscles flex and move as he walked.

She rolled over onto her side, propping her head up with her hand to wait for him. She kept thinking about how fucking sexy it was when he winked at her from between her thighs, or even moments ago as he wiped his mouth. She also kept thinking how grateful she was to get a moment of reprieve before whatever happened next.

He walked back into the bedroom slowly stroking himself before he laid on his side facing her. His gaze looking up and down her body. He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before he leaned in to kiss her. His hand gently drew a line from her shoulder, to her hips.

Pulling back he whispered, “You just let me know when you’re ready to keep going.”

Elle nodded. She reached up and shoved him lightly in the shoulder before crawling on top of him. “I’m so ready to keep going.” She reached down between them and took his cock in her hand. She slowly rubbed the tip along her vagina so he could feel how wet she still was. 

He inhaled quickly. “Okay good because I really want to fuck you,” he said in low throaty growl into her ear. She recognized how patient and careful he was being with her. But she also knew that it had been a long time for him too. 

She sat back on his legs and pulled his body up so he was sitting, recognition dawning on his face as he realized where she was going. “I figured you must really like this position…” she whispered into his ear. 

He nodded his head, the stubble along his jawline brushing against her cheek. “Yes, among many many others that I want to try with you.”

Her heart was beating so quickly and as she pulled him close to her, she could feel his too. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. Behind it was all of the desire, passion and pure lust she had felt for this man for over 10 years. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think this would become a reality. 

She broke off their kiss and raised up, reaching down to grab his throbbing cock. She drew tight circles with it before securing him between her labia. 

“I might be really tight.” She confessed.

“I’m hoping you are…” he winked at her again.

Her cheeks reddened again. As she slowly began to lower her body, she whimpered slightly against the initial strain on her entrance. She bit her lip as she continued to slowly slide his length into her. She could feel the buzzing sensation inside her stomach and her thighs quivered as her walls stretched and secured his cock inside. Once she had taken his dick, she paused and closed her eyes. 

They had each been so careful with one another, waiting and cultivating these moments. With their bodies connected, Elle felt closer to Bill than ever before. 

Bill’s body responded to her movements with a slow thrust, adjusting himself in her.

“You okay?” He asked, his voice shaking. 

“Mmmmm… yeah. Fuck this feels so good.” She responded as she started to gently rock her hips back and forth on top of his strong thighs. 

“You’re so wet. How are you this wet?” He looked down between them watching his shaft move in and out of her.

She paused, pulling his face to hers and locking eyes with him. “Because it’s you…” she said softly before kissing him.

His arms tightened around her as they kissed, pulling her body against his. Flexing the muscles in his thighs, Bill used the bounce of the bed to help him find a rhythmic pace for their bodies. She coaxed him to thrust harder into her with cries of yes, and begging him not to stop. Elle broke out into a cold sweat as she came and moved her hips in fast circles with the release, a deep moan leaving her throat.

Bill ached to pleasure her again and again, craving the feeling of her body pulsating around his cock. In a quick motion, he spun them around so that Elle was laying flat on her back, her legs wrapped around his waist. His thrusts were slow but strong pressing deep into her, their skin slapping together. She whimpered as his pace quickened, the pressure building inside of her once again. Her muscles tightened strong around his cock as she came again. This finally pushed him over the edge and he gave a few final thrusts before his face contorted and he exhaled with his release. He collapsed on top of her, his breathing strong and fast.

Elle ran her hands up and down his back as his breath slowed and then held him to her tight. She could feel his heart beating strong and fast against her own chest.

Bill lifted his head and pushed a strand of hair out of her face, “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

She shook her head, “Not at all.” His cock started softening inside her as her own heartbeat slowed. “I did forget to mention that I do my kegels though… did that bother you?”

Bill chuckled lightly, “Fuck no… you’re fucking strong.” He shifted his weight slightly being careful not to completely pull out yet. He pressed his body up, “Okay, I’m going to get off of you and let you go to the bathroom and I’ll go get us glasses of water.”

She kissed him on the forehead. “All right, count of three… one… two… three…” As he pulled out she rolled over to the edge of the bed and walked quickly to the bathroom. She smiled as she felt his cum dripping down the insides of her thighs as she walked. 

They each returned to the bedroom and Elle grabbed the glass of water from Bill and quenched her actual thirst. Bill putting down his glass of water laid down on his back on the bed and patted the space next to him, beckoning her over. She obeyed, laying next to him, tucking her body under his arm and resting her head on his chest. Bill’s breath was slow and steady under her, his heart thudded softly against her ear. They were both silent for a long time.

Elle broke the silence between them, “Bill?”

“Mm hmm” his voice was quiet and groggy. 

“Has anyone told you that you are a very patient lover?” She drew slow circles in the dark hair that covered his chest. 

He smiled as he rested his cheek on the top of her head, “I really wanted this time to be special for us… but it took a lot of self control while you were undressing me. But I liked that… a lot.”

She sighed, “You were wearing so many clothes…”

Bill nodded against her, “Do you wanna watch a movie?” He asked quietly. 

She nodded against his chest. “Do you mind if I shower first?”

“Do you want to shower together?” Bill squeezed her lightly.

She rolled over and looked at him, he had the sexiest grin on his face as she suspected. 

They fucked again in the shower. Bill took her from behind as he massaged her breasts with his hands. Elle came twice more and still managed to keep her hair from getting wet, which was her only request to Bill. 

They stood in the bathroom drying off and laughing at the precarious balancing act Elle performed propping herself up on the tile seat in the shower so Bill could enter her. 

“Do they make shower step stools?” Elle asked. 

Bill shook his head laughing. His face relaxed and he made a gesture towards a drawer in the vanity. “I… umm… emptied out a drawer for you. If you want to keep some stuff over here. And I got you a toothbrush.”

Her heart swelled, “Thanks Bill.” She ran her hand down his arm and leaned in to kiss him. 

Afterwards, Elle put on her PJs and Bill his boxers. They crawled into Bill’s bed and turned on TCM to watch whatever was on, which happened to be Ace in the Hole. For once, the usually chatty couple was quiet. Both worn out from the awards show and sex, the two finding solace in their isolation. Before long, they had both fallen sound asleep.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elle and Bill spend the next day after Emmy night together.

The next morning, Elle woke to Bill’s fingers brushing her hair back from her face. His thumb softly brushed the skin at her temple. Keeping her eyes closed for a few minutes longer she greeted him, “Good morning Bill.” 

“Oh good! You’re awake! Good morning!” Bill said excitedly.

As she opened her eyes, she saw that he was sitting up in the bed, his laptop in front of him. “Are you working?”

He looked down at her, realizing this probably wasn’t the morning pillow talk she was expecting. He paused before answering, “Yes.” His lips were turned under which made his mouth look like one straight line across his face. He closed and squinted his eyes before continuing, “I’m so sorry, I woke up and was thinking about episode six and if we should take out the conversation about the bullet? Would you take a look at it? Please?”

She rolled over and grabbed her glasses off the table next to her and sat up with a sigh.

Bill handed her his laptop, “I made coffee, can I bring you coffee?” he asked energetically, almost too energetically. He flipped the covers back and stood up from the bed before turning back to her.

She inhaled sharply closing her eyes, allowing her brain to catch up with the slow movements of her body. “Yes, coffee would be great. Thank you.”

He leaned back on the bed, placing his knee underneath him. His hands reached and cupped her face, his thumbs caressing her sharp cheekbones, he kissed her, “You’re amazing...” he kissed her again, “sexy…” and kissed her one last time, “and a really heavy sleeper.” He smiled down at her, a halo of messy brown hair framing his face. “I’ll be right back.”

She looked down at the laptop to read what he had mentioned to her. He was right. With the little time they had during each episode, there was no reason for Fuches and Barry to talk about something they had already discussed.

Bill came back in and set her coffee down on the table next to her. Without taking her eyes off the screen, she grabbed the handle and brought the sweet elixir of caffeine to her lips. She sat it back down and then started typing.

Bill crawled back into the bed next to her and patiently waited for her response. She moved the laptop between them for her to show him what she edited.

“Here… read this… What do you think?” She pointed to the revised conversation on the screen.

Bill’s shoulders were rounded and he squinted his eyes as he read, “Ooooh… yeah I like that…” He grabbed the laptop and hit save on the document before closing it shut and leaning over to place it on his nightstand. 

In one smooth motion, Bill managed to throw the covers back up over the two of them and bounce on top of her, his knees straddling her legs. He grabbed on to her glasses and placed them on the table next to her before propping himself up on his right elbow, his left leg flung across her body. Elle shimmied underneath the covers so she could lay her head back onto the pillows. “Now back to what we should be doing this morning…” Bill said before kissing her deeply, “Did you sleep well last night?” He tucked his left hand underneath her tank top and rubbed her stomach.

“Mmmm… Yes I did. I was worn out. You?” she asked, tangling her fingers in his hair.

“Same…” He leaned in and kissed her again, his hand inching its way upward until his thumb brushed against her breast. “Really thank you for looking at that this morning, I’m sorry I woke you up like that.”

She ran her thumb across his cheekbone as she smiled at him, “So Emmy-winner, Bill Hader, what do you want to do today?”

The corner of his mouth turned up, “Mmm… you?”

A small giggle escaped her lips as Bill maneuvered his way on top of her, spreading her legs wide with his knees. “But what about food?”

He buried his face in her neck, “I was going to eat pussy.”

She laughed again and pinched him in the ribs, “Bill!”

He grabbed her around the waist and rolled her on top of him in one quick motion, their bodies tangled in the sheets. He sighed, “I do have phone interviews today but…” he paused to kiss her deeply again and then pulled away. His hands drifted down to her hips and his eyes locked with hers, “Elle, I’m very serious when I say, I want to have as much sex with you as I can, because I don’t know when we’ll be able to get away like this again.”

Elle hadn’t even thought of that. The next few months would be filled with insane hours followed by months of editing. They would get breaks but understandably Bill had a family and other projects. The prospect of not knowing when the next time they would have the opportunity to be so inherently intimate with another inspired a hungry sense of urgency. Any opportunity would be either stolen moments or planned weeks in advance.

Guiding his hands under her pajama top, he easily slipped it up and over her head. “I mean… if it's okay with you?”

Smiling wide down at him, Elle bought her hands to rest on his chest, her hair fell forward cascading around her face, “I would love nothing more than to  _ waddle _ out of your apartment this evening, Bill.”

He grabbed her by the waist and flipped her over on her back again, thrusting against her. He propped himself up on hands and knees and looked down upon her, “So tell me, what do you like?”

Her face went blank with thought. She spent so much of her time in relationships and during sex trying to be what these men wanted, that her needs always felt second. She realized maybe she did not know what she liked. “Ummm… I don’t know what to say. I’ve never been asked that before Bill...”

Bill sat back on his heels, “Aww baby that’s sad…” he said impersonating the woman at the drive thru last night. He made himself laugh. “But… really? That is sad…” He ran his finger along the waistband of her shorts. “Well, what have we done that you liked?”

Elle propped herself up on the pillows thinking back to their first day, “I really like kissing you, I definitely like kissing a lot. Ummm… kissing ears and neck are good spots, especially like breath there… is good.”

It was like Bill was mentally taking notes, “Okay, what else? Did you like it when I played with your nipples?”

Her mouth curled trying to recall last night, “You did that? I think I was distracted with something else…”

He nodded, “Okay, we’ll add that to the things to try… What else?”

Elle blushed when she thought about it, “The oral was amazing...like really amazing.” Bill smiled wide at her, she loved that he was so confident in that, “I like sitting on you during sex, which I think you know by now, missionary was great… The shower in theory would have been so hot, but was a little awkward because of our height difference.”

Bill nodded, “What else?” As she had been talking, he slowly ran his hands up and down her thighs, massaging her.

She kept going, her breath quickening from his touch… is this something she should mention, she thought. “Um… I like looking at you… the faces you make, when you winked at me from between my thighs, when you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and when you briefly stroked yourself…”

Beneath the thin cotton of his boxers, she could see him stiffening as she recounted the events of last night. At the mention of her liking to watch him, he pulled his cock from beneath the waistband. Gripping his shaft, he ran a hand up and down it slowly. “Like this?” he asked.

Elle nodded and continued, “I like the way your hands feel on my body, how you touch me.” Her breath grew shallow as she watched him and her heart was beating so fast. “But I think most of all, I like how you make me laugh.”

Bill paused and smiled at her. His hands reached for her pajama bottoms and panties and he guided them slowly down her legs. “I like making you laugh…”

It was time for the tables to turn, she wanted to know what he wanted from her. “What did you like from last night?” she asked quietly.

Raising up to his knees, Bill removed his boxers and braced himself on his hands, his body hovering above hers. “I also like kissing you a lot.” He brought his mouth down to hers. “I liked the anticipation and letting it build,” he kissed her neck. “I like the way your skin feels warm and soft against mine…” he kissed her collar bone. Then his hands softly cupped her breasts and massaged them in circles. He took one of her nipples in his mouth and sucked gently until he could feel it harden, and then did the same on the other. 

Elle moaned at the sensation, she did like that. 

“I like your plump, perfect, tits.” He braced his body over her again and looked in her eyes, “I like the way you taste and, Elle, I really like making you orgasm. All the sounds, the way it feels when I’m inside you, and the way your body moves during it.”

Elle smiled at him. Reaching an arm between them, she started to slowly stroke his cock. “What else?” she said, imitating his questioning of her. 

He moaned with her touch and his voice was shaking a little, “I liked your blow job the other day and your cute panic when you needed to spit.”

She giggled, “Yeah, I don’t like to swallow.”

He palmed her clit, causing her to whimper slightly. “Do you prefer external stimulation or penetration?” He dragged a finger up and down her labia.

Elle swallowed hard and was losing coordination in her hand. Her voice was shaky and breathless, “Umm.. well, they both work and get the job done, but…” his fingers pressed into the skin around her opening, “Oh my god… ummm… but I like climaxing with penetration more.”

He kissed her neck again and whispered in her ear, “Is there anything else you can think of?”

“Bill, I’m having a really hard time thinking right now…” she said matter-of-factly.

Bill giggled, “That’s kind of what I was going for, you ready?” He had replaced his hand with the smoothe round tip of his penis, carefully opening her up to him.

She nodded. He slowly entered her with a few easy thrusts, carefully pushing himself all the way into her. Despite his previous presence the night before, she was still surprised by his length. Her breath hitched as her body adjusted around him.

“You okay?” he asked, his eyebrows raised slightly with concern.

“Yeah, you’re… well Bill, you have probably the biggest dick I’ve ever had before.”

He started to laugh, and his cock flexed and moved as he did. It felt so good inside of her that she couldn’t help the whimper that escaped from her lips. 

“I guess I always thought I was about average…” he said, lowering down onto his elbows so that their faces were closer together.

She kissed him hard on the mouth, her arms wrapping around him. His mouth tasted sour and bitter from the coffee. “You are anything but average.”

Bill’s hips moved against her in long slow thrusts. He was gentle because it was morning and neither one of them were fully awake yet. 

Her hands slid down his body and felt the muscles of his ass flexing as he charged into her over and over again. As she came closer and closer to climaxing, she guided his motions with her hands and her hips. Everything in her body tightened around him as pleasure exploded inside of her. Burying her face in his neck, he moved his body in slow circles as he rode out her orgasm.

Bill paused his thrusting and kissed her hard on the mouth before whispering to her, “You feel so good babe, I want to feel you do that over and over again.” 

She kissed his neck and shoulders waiting for her breath to slow. He started thrusting again when a thought popped into her head. He wanted to know what she liked, well there was only one way to find out.

“Bill… Could I get on top?”

He popped up onto his hands with his eyes wide. His teeth bit his bottom lip before he answered, “Yeah!” He slowly pulled out and fell on to his back beside her, his hand gripping the base of his shaft.

She couldn’t help but giggle about how excited she was to be on top of him, “I’m sorry I’m laughing, I’m really looking forward to this.” Legs straddling his body, she propped herself up on her knees and took hold of his penis.

His long body stretched out beneath her, a wide smile on his face, he laid back with his hands behind his head. 

She slowly lowered her body onto his cock and paused, allowing herself to once again adjust to his body. She ran her hands through her hair, pushing any strands out of her face. “Okay… umm… can I put my hands here?” she placed her hands on his strong chest… “Shit… do you have to be shirtless this week?”

He laughed, “What are you going to do to me?”

Elle closed her eyes and laughed with him, “I didn’t want to like accidentally like scratch you or something…”

“Well, the sound guy will need to mic me up, so I’d prefer to not have to explain bloody scratches on my chest.” He playfully bucked his hips underneath her.

She yipped as he did this, “Fine… Fine… I’ll be careful with the talent.” she said dramatically. She began to rise and lower her body around his shaft slowly, enjoying the feeling of him hitting every bit of flesh inside her. 

“I really like watching you do this Elle” Bill said. He struggled to not take control, but to let her ride him at her own pace but soon it became too much for him. Taking his hands out from behind his head he gripped tightly onto her hips guiding her movements on him. He shut his eyes until he was interrupted.

“Look at me Bill…” she said as she placed two fingers in her mouth and started to suck on them. He moaned beneath her as he watched her pull her fingers from her mouth and down to rub her clit as she rode him hard and fast.

The closer he was to his own climax, the harder his fingers dug into her flesh, knowing he was going to leave marks on her body. He could feel her tightening around him.

She breathlessly called out his name over and over as she came again, and he pounded into her. He strung together a senseless stream of expletives as he came, the sensations of her vibrating body finally taking him over the edge.

She collapsed on top of him, their bodies sticky with sweat. He wrapped his arms around her body urging his breath to calm down. 

“Bill…” she said against his chest.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I’ve got to pee soo bad.” she said laughing.

Taking a much needed break from sex, they got up and showered. Bill ended up making breakfast before he started taking calls for interviews. Elle sat on his couch reading a book, but she was finding it hard to concentrate as he paced around the living room answering questions about all of the thoughts that ran through his head when he won the Emmy.

He had been incredibly serious about wanting to have as much sex with her as possible though. When he said he had one more interview, he went ahead and started stripping her down in the living room. He had barely finished the interview before he had his fingers inside her, hand clamped around her mouth to keep her quiet. He had an hour break before his next phone call, then he had two more scheduled after that. 

He picked her up and they fucked on the kitchen counter. 

He was about halfway through his last interview of the day when Elle pulled down his boxers and started blowing him. He covered up the fact that he was struggling to answer the question because he thought he had to sneeze. Once he finished the interview, he threw his phone down on the couch and they had their roughest sex yet. Slightly annoyed at her, he pounded into her right there on the floor. 

They collapsed on the floor, completely exhausted. Elle looked over at Bill lying on his back, chest heaving up and down. He looked so sexy.

She reached over and half-assedly punched his shoulder. He looked over at her smiling. “You got a little dominance thing you need to explore there Hader?” she asked him.

He held his stomach and laughed before punching her gently on the shoulder in response, “Maybe? Want to help me with that sometime?” He winked.

“Maybe…” she struggled to her knees. “Fuck.. I’m going to shower.. ALONE.” She said pushing him down to the ground as he made his way to get up.

“Oh come on… I promise, no more. I’ve got nothing left in me… seriously my balls are going to be shriveled raisins by now… but I want to be near you for a little bit longer,” he pleaded, grabbing on to her hand.

“Fine… but seriously… no more sex today.” she helped pull him up and lead him to the bathroom, trying her hardest not to waddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love your feedback! Please leave a comment or kudos. Thank you! 
> 
> PS - Its going to be a few weeks before I update. I haven't been able to write as much. There is still more of their story to tell.

**Author's Note:**

> So the timeline of this is a little off, but it needed to be this way in order to work for the story. Please leave comments, I'll post new chapters every Monday.


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